You can't fix stupid by telling it it's stupid - survival as a millennial
Not long ago I was faced with someone at work who was determined that they were right despite the evidence. They had given my team a task that was impossible to achieve. My team, rightfully, told them that it could not be done and that a different team would have to complete it unless some of our other tasks were turned off.
What was the response?
"No, you just need to do it."
Cue face-palm.
All this happened while I was away, so upon return, I immediately set out to set the record straight and reinforced my team who had done the right thing.
The reply?
Well, I'm just being difficult of course.
Yep. Despite providing quantitative facts that we could not do something, we were in fact just being difficult.
To cut a long story short, my team got lucky and another task was turned off (by happenstance, not as a result of our request) and we completed the requested job. Many of the junior members on my team wanted me to go back again after the email that called me difficult to try to change this supervisors mind, to prove that we weren't difficult, just overtasked and under-resourced.
I considered it. The part inside, the egotistical part that had to be right and to prove it really wanted to reply.
I didn't.
What's the point? I knew there was no way to change this man's mind. He had made it up, and because he was senior to me and my team, automatically assumed that he was correct. The really frustrating part is that the system we work in would assume the same thing as well.
So, I didn't, because you can't fix stupid by telling it it's stupid, no matter how much you want to. I let it go. It wasn't easy, but I let it go. I also explained this to the others in my team when they asked why I wasn't going to fire back - they knew any reply from me would be spicy.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has faced similar circumstances. Times when reason falls on deaf ears. Times when people cannot see their own shortfalls or are too stubborn to accept someone else's evidence or opinion.
You can't fix stupid has become a mantra for me. It's less frustrating to let things go than to try to educate someone who has a closed mind.
Darklings explores many human weaknesses and the darkness within, but I think I missed a golden opportunity by not exploring human stupidity and bias. Although many of the themes are things I think will resonate with people - pain, addiction, lust, vengeance - stupidity is potentially the most powerful, widespread, and frustrating of them all.
Maybe I'll do another story that explores this.
In the meantime, I'll keep working to let things go and to avoid the temptation of trying to fix stupid by telling it it's stupid.
If you haven't yet, grab yourself a copy of Darklings by hitting the link below and explore the dark depths of humanity with me.
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