I'm Not Crazy. I'm Tired of Thinking for Everyone.

Behind the Books

I did not want to write a book about incompetent people.

Seriously.

I would have preferred to write about efficient people.

It would have been much shorter.

Maybe a pamphlet.

Two pages.

Three if we included acknowledgments.

But life insisted.

One simple piece of paperwork required six phone calls.

An instruction sent in writing ended with a question whose answer was, with admirable nerve, sitting in the first line.

A service I was paying for managed to turn the customer into the supervisor, technician, investigator, and, if there was time left, therapist for the employee who could not find the solution.

That was when I began to suspect that perhaps I was not losing my patience.

Perhaps my patience had been working overtime for years.

It Isn't Madness. It Is Accumulated Exhaustion.

The exhaustion of doing your part and managing everybody else's carelessness too.

For a long time, you hear certain phrases and eventually begin doubting yourself.

—You're too demanding.

—Everything bothers you.

—It isn't that serious.

—Just leave it.

I love that last one.

‘Just leave it’ is one of those extraordinary phrases almost always spoken by somebody who will not pay the consequences of leaving it.

If the order arrives wrong, I fix it.

If the document has mistakes, I correct it.

If nobody checked the address, guess who ends up calling.

If something expires because nobody remembered the date, the same person always appears, searching for a way to solve it.

So, of course.

To everybody else, every problem is small.

Because the small problem usually ends up living on my desk.

When Did You Start Thinking for Everyone?

Probably the day doing it yourself was faster than waiting for somebody else to do it properly.

That is where the trap begins.

You solve it once.

Because there is a rush.

Because the customer is waiting.

Because there is no time to explain it again.

Because correcting it takes five minutes and teaching it again may take half an hour.

Fine.

The problem is that exceptions learn quickly.

Before long, you are no longer helping.

You are functioning as a human backup system.

You remember.

You review.

You confirm.

You ask whether they did what they said they were going to do.

Then you ask why they did not do it.

That is work too.

Nobody puts it on the invoice, though.

The problem with always being the person who solves everything is that the world begins mistaking you for tech support.

When Incompetence Stops Being a Mistake and Becomes a System

Making mistakes is human. Turning not looking into a methodology is another fucking matter.

I do not mind when somebody makes a mistake.

I make mistakes.

A lot of them.

I have made decisions that deserved witnesses, a notary, and probably a family intervention.

That is not the point.

What exhausts me is the absence of any attempt.

Not reading before asking.

Not looking before saying something is missing.

Not checking before transferring the problem.

Not thinking for thirty seconds because finding somebody else to think for you is more comfortable.

That is when I feel like bringing out the modeling clay.

And some flash cards.

Maybe a presentation with drawings.

Although, with my luck, they would then ask where the ‘next’ button is.

The Trap of Being the Woman Who Solves Everything

Being capable is an advantage until everybody starts using your ability as public infrastructure.

This part hits me directly.

I like solving things.

Not because I am a martyr.

Because I like things to work.

I like creating.

Organizing.

Finding a way out.

Seeing a problem and thinking about how to fix it.

That is part of who I am.

The problem begins when an ability becomes a permanent obligation.

Since you know how, do it.

Since you're fast, check it.

Since you have good judgment, decide.

Since you always manage, take care of it.

Without noticing, everybody begins leaning on you a little.

One person.

Another.

One more.

Until one day you understand why you are exhausted even though technically ‘nothing serious happened.’

One enormous thing did not happen.

Five hundred small ones did.

Eventually a Woman Stops Explaining and Starts Setting Boundaries

Not because she stopped caring. Because she finally understood that caring does not require taking responsibility for everything.

The hardest boundary is not always saying ‘no.’

Sometimes it is letting somebody else solve the problem.

Even if it takes them longer.

Even if they do it differently.

Even if you can see from a distance that they are heading straight into a wall and have to sit on your hands to keep from intervening.

When you have spent years preventing other people's consequences, allowing those consequences to exist feels cruel.

It is not.

It is returning responsibility to its owner.

If somebody has a task, they also have the right to learn what happens when they do not do it.

And you have the right not to turn every external mistake into a personal emergency.

This applies at work.

In families.

In relationships.

With friends.

And with that fascinating species of functional adult who suddenly forgets how to do absolutely anything the moment they discover you know how.

The 27 Chapters: A Tour Through Everyday Incompetence

I did not need to invent monsters. Watching offices, chats, streets, doctors, neighbors, exes, and self-checkout machines was enough.

The book has an opening, 27 chapters, and a closing.

And yes.

Twenty-seven.

Apparently incompetence has an ability to expand that NASA should be studying.

There are also the express-appointment doctors.

The ‘tomorrow without fail’ contractors.

The neighbors who turn a light bulb into an international conflict.

The real-estate agents who call any hole a palace.

Gyms and their sweaty wildlife with self-esteem.

And, of course, exes.

If we are discussing emotional incompetence, leaving them out would be irresponsible.

Why Laugh About All This?

Because some days the alternative is explaining it for the ninth time, and we already used up the modeling clay.

This book did not come from hatred.

That would be exhausting.

It came from looking at absurd situations and thinking:

This cannot be happening only to me.

And no.

It wasn't.

There is instant recognition when somebody describes calling customer service to solve a problem and ending up teaching the representative how the service worked.

Or when an adult asks about something they just read.

Or when you pay for a solution and end up solving it yourself.

Laughter appears because recognition makes you feel less alone.

And because sarcasm has one wonderful advantage:

it lets you tell the truth without turning every day into a formal complaint.

I do not want a world without mistakes. I want one where people look before asking, read before calling, and try to solve something for thirty seconds before transferring the work to the first person who answers.

Who Did I Write I'm Not Crazy, I'm Surrounded by Incompetent People For?

For anyone who has done two jobs and still had to hear that she was in a bad mood.

For the person who explains.

Corrects.

Repeats.

Solves.

And then wonders why she is exhausted.

For anyone who has left a phone call thinking the only person who failed to understand the problem was the one employed to solve it.

For anyone who has doubted her own judgment because the people around her keep saying, ‘It isn't that serious.’

And for anyone who has quietly wondered whether common sense became a premium service.

And no.

The book does not suggest you are the only intelligent person on the planet.

What an exhausting responsibility that would be.

It suggests something much simpler:

that we stop calling it ‘being demanding’ when we ask somebody to do what they said they would do.

That we stop calling exhaustion from repetition a ‘bad temper.’

And that every once in a while, before asking:

we look.

We read.

We think.

Thirty seconds.

I am not asking for a doctorate.

No breathing into a paper bag or repeating ‘everything flows.’ Common sense gets you surprisingly far.

Keep Reading

I'm not crazy. I simply stopped confusing patience with unlimited availability to fix everybody else's life.