Plant guy is at it again

The problem with stupid guys is not that they’re stupid. They are, don’t get me wrong, they are extremely stupid, but that’s not the problem.

One stupid guy can be handled, even counted on. One person making mistakes is easy to control. Limit his contact with sensitive information, appoint a competent individual to periodically review his work and look for alarming mistakes, and you can run pretty smoothly.

More than one stupid guy can be a lot to handle. But still doable. At least you know they’re stupid, you can watch for their mistakes, learn to expect them, head them off when you can to make your job easier.

No, it’s not that they’re stupid. It’s that other people can sometimes be stupid.

Stupid people don’t know that. They don’t spot problems. They do their job by the book. They live in a world of simple commands. Go here. Type this. Print that. Thinking is not something they do.

So, when the wrong payment comes in for a fund, because a normal person made a mistake, you won’t hear a peep from the stupid guy. Normal people make mistakes. Other normal people know this, and when they see a mistake, they do something.

Not plant guy. He’ll take in the payment, as if it were correct, and you’ll be none the wiser. When it happens on four funds at once it may be too much to expect he will -- at the very least -- make the same mistake on each fund, but, it is too much to expect, you won’t hear a thing.

Until a month later that is, when a not-so-stupid guy brings you the problem. Then, you research the problem, realize stupid guy took in a payment without bringing it to your attention, without knowing it was bad, or alerting people. So what if it didn’t match, he’s just blindly going about his day-to-day activities. He is unconcerned with consequences. His brain doesn’t work like that.

He leaves me with four funds. Two have taken in payments that don’t exist. One has two past-due payments, and has not been adjusted. The fourth had two past-due payments, was then adjusted, and has a third payment pending.

Four funds, with the same issue, have become four funds with six different issues. That were only brought to my attention today. And, because hypermanager doesn’t want to do any work he needs me to solve the problems by tomorrow morning.

I tell you, I’ll do my best – because sure, I hate the job, I hate stupid people, I’m not hypermanager’s biggest fan, but I like getting things right. I like solving problems. And I like being good at what I do.

-t


recommended download:
Pearl Jam, Go and Alive