Women of Reddit, how do you deal with weaponized incompetence?

3 comments

1. I look it up on the internet to find out what it means.

   *a situation wherein a person pretends to be bad at doing something in order to get out of doing certain tasks*

   Oh – we all did that as kids, didn’t we?

   As an adult, and a very competent, organised and efficient person, if the job isn’t my responsibility, I meet it with even less competence. If it is at work, I start copying their boss into e-mails. As a woman, people are more than willing to believe that I am incompetent.

2. It depends who it’s from. I wouldn’t date anyone that did this and I don’t have kids so that’s not an issue.

   Friends and family? It’s their problem if they’re not going to act like adults. Boo hoo, you can’t click a button on the laundry machine. Go and Google how to work it.

3. I don’t. I have never dated such a person and friends who do it are tolerated twice after being explicitly told I am not a fan of that behaviour. Unless there is a reasonable reason why they don’t want to do something, I simply stop allowing for situations in which I have to rely on them for that by actively avoiding that. I have to admit, it has happened only twice and overall, no issues of any kind since then.