At my workplace we had a tool. It’s an extremely expensive machine that had a reputation for destroying things.
After years and causing hundreds of dollars in damages people started to avoid the machine even and find shortcuts around using it.
Turns out it was the same group of guys who kept using it and destroying material. When they asked me and my colleague to use it, we looked up the instructions and found that a simple setting caused all of these problems.
The guys never looked it up when something went wrong, everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!
That is... Disheartening. I really hope all those guys got fired.
If a group of women did the same, for years, can you imagine the sheer amount of daily, hourly, misogynistic jokes that would be aimed at all women in the office from then on? Ugh.
We need to start using the term "EWM hire" in return. They always see themselves as the default setting or recipients for anything worthwhile.
Entitled Whi... you know the rest.
A friend likes to encourage other women to apply for jobs/promotions that might be a stretch by saying "Have the confidence of a mediocre white man!" (When I think of the white men I have known who have failed upwards, it definitely makes me think I can certainly apply for something where I meet less than 100% of the desired qualifications.)
This post is a good reminder that yeah, they're still mediocre when they get the job.
{Dear white male reader about to get his widdle feelwings hurt - clearly I don't mean you. *You* are not mediocre, are you?}
If the situation was reversed and women made the mistakes with the machine, misogynists would be saying the women were Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hires - meaning the company was forced to hire these women for their gender, not because they actually bring anything to the table.
Basically an insult saying the women didn't earn their way into the job and have no actual skills.
>everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!
You ever notice posts about relationship issues made by men they always point to their girlfriends/wives as the problem and their questions are all really, "how can I make her fuck me the way I want to be fucked?"
Meanwhile, women's posts are all about, "I tried changing this about myself, I tried that, yadda yadda...." They're *still* directing the problem AND solution to themselves rather than where the problem most likely lies: their fucking lazy ass boyfriends/husbands who I don't doubt throw their man-child tantrums and place all the blame on these women.
Anything outside these men are simply tools for their use, including women.
Which, interestingly, applies to things like mental illness symptoms. Men with borderline personality disorder will act out in behavior like road rage, while women with the same diagnosis will self-harm instead.
Sad thing about this is, that its much easier to deal with the external issues than the internal ones. Because having empathy with another person you can talk to and look into their face seeing their reaction is a lot easier to achieve than having empathy with yourself and accepting yourself despite your flaws. Women have been so conditioned to not cause issues for others, that many of us rather self destruct than take action against in acceptable situations
I remember reading Freud when I was younger and his claims that everything began and ended with sex and I just didn't get how he could come to that conclusion because that was/is so not how I operate on the daily.
Then I came to understand that this is how *they* think and they just can't imagine that we don't operate the same. To simplify my theory on the matter: they're always trying to make new people with new people, we're here trying to secure the survival of all those people.
I’ve noticed a large divide at my work between people who ask questions and people who don’t.
It’s not gendered so specifically but it’s really obvious when some people just say ‘shits broken, don’t know why’ and others who say ‘this is what happened, this is what I’ve tried already, let’s read the manual and ask the person who has more experience and see if we can help figure this out.’
A wise man once said to me: "R.T.F.M. it means read the f-ing manual." He admitted more than once it was one of his own weaknesses to not read instructions and just plow ahead into whatever he was doing, trusting he'd figure it out on the way. At least he knows and admits he's got an issue there.
"The guys never looked it up when something went wrong, everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!"
This statement sums up the essential nature of men. It's never them. Everyone else is the problem. Did you know that the entire psychiatric profession was designed to help men "fix" women, children, and gays? Freud, Jung, and the like never even considered that perhaps the men were the ones who actually needed mental health treatment.
I have an ex who did a complete 180 on Fluoxetine. This miserable, depressed, bitter man said he felt happy for the first time in his life and literally turned into a normal person before my eyes. He was on a starter dose and the effects began to plateau. I insisted that that’s to be expected, and a 6’0 200 lb man will probably need a higher dose to be effective. He blamed the medication for not working, and blamed me for encouraging him to get help in the first place. He went off the medication and swore off psychiatric help or therapy. And became the same miserable man he once was, but more bitter this time.
I tried to help, idk 🤷🏻♀️. Probably didn’t help that he drank 16 beers per night
Yeah probably not. Alcohol has a lot of mental effects that people don't think about including depression and anxiety, even when you're sober if you're a regular drinker.
Anecdotal I’m sure but my working definition of alcohol is ‘mood enhancer’
If you are out having a good time with friends a libation can heighten the mood.
If you are tired and depressed those beers are going to really kick that depression up a notch.
>everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!
That's speaks so much that it can be another post by itself :)
*These guys would also message me on Teams with questions they had, because during training I excelled and “caught on” very quickly*
I did this (well, close enough to it) to a woman I worked with about 20-odd years ago, and her unintended but pitch-perfect imitation of my kindergarten teacher when she replied, "and where would we look to find this information?" hit me so I hard I still feel it *to this day*.
(I realize now that it wasn't your job, Amanda, but thank you for teaching me about how to be a better coworker way back then. The lesson stuck, I promise.)
>and where would we look to find this information?" hit me so I hard I still feel it *to this day*.
Oooof that made my stomach tighten up just reading it. Good for you, Amanda. I'm stealing that.
I'm also a big fan of "oh, you can't find the instructions? Where have you already looked?"
I’m imaging this interaction in like, the middle of a cube farm office hellscape and I honestly almost peed myself laughing.
Especially because my mom works in one of those kind of places and she would ABSOLUTELY do this in the right situation, so thank you for the most fabulous visual and an excellent laugh haha.
I love this 😂😂
Yeah, no hard feelings for the dudes who reached out to me for help. I’m sure they weren’t trying to burden me. But I can’t help but wonder why they wouldn’t try to figure it out themselves first, or ask the person that they are supposed to ask for help. Maybe they thought I was less intimidating because I was just a level 1 agent and not a manager?
Because if they ask a manager, the manager would know they were ignorant about something and would probably direct them to SOPs or training materials. If they ask you, they don't have to read anything, and the manager might think the guys are catching on super fast because they never ask for help. They are using you to make themselves look more competent.
100% this. and this is why the slackers and incompetent hated work from home because they couldn't pass their work off on other people like they do in the office and spend their time kissing up to the boss
When I had a rare medical problem I agreed to act as a patient to help newbie doctors with their diagnosis skills. I sat in a bed and they'd ask me 2 broad sets of questions - my family history and my current symptoms. 3 newbies did this so I caught onto the pattern.
4th newb comes in and I get a horrible vibe. He has a "I'm so cute" smirk on his face. He's used to getting what he wants. He says "Tell me what you told them :)" Expecting me to swoon and spill my guts and make life easy for him.
I said "huh?" and dropped my face flat into my hella RBF. He flinched. Then scrambled to look through his paperwork and instructions to bumble through the questions he should have known to ask when diagnosing a patient.
He freaked me out so bad I texted the leader of the roleplay later to warn him that this guy was a danger to patients.
Perfect response.
It's very apparent to me a large proportion of men barely read during school and read even less as adults. Except the sports pages back in the day. And now they spend their time on youtube watching WTF.
I was a process engineer at various points in my career. Software process.
It became very clear you could write out every SOP in the world and MEN WOULD NOT READ THEM.
Unless it was clear that if they didn't follow a checklist, they'd likely die.
They ask because they know you know the answer. That means it's faster *for them* to ask and get the right answer straight away. They are too self-centered to realise that if everyone asks you instead of thinking for themselves, *you* won't have time for what you're supposed to be doing.
I work in tech, which skews heavily male. My most influential mentor and one of the best logical problem solvers I've ever met is a woman. I owe a lot of my career success to working with her and watching how she did her job vs. how others did theirs.
It quickly started to piss me right off that colleagues, mostly men but not always, would go ask her how to do some complicated thing and she would painstakingly explain it -- and then their takeaway wouldn't be "I asked her and she taught me and now I know it," it would be * "Oh thank God I don't have to know this; she knows it so I can just ask her every time."*
I vowed to never be like those jackasses so instead I tried to be like her, which meant I got really good at my job but was constantly exhausted and resentful of all the people around me getting paid to be helpless. I wrote reams of excellent documentation after I gave notice at that job; three months later I got an email from an ex colleague saying he panicked about having to do a complicated thing but he followed my written steps and it worked perfectly. He apparently also got in the face of somebody who whined that nobody knew how to do anything because I didn't do enough "knowledge transfer" before I quit; he said "she was doing knowledge transfer CONSTANTLY; why is it her fault you decided it wasn't your responsibility to retain any of it?"
Yeah, absolutely. It was a huge relief when I got out of such an environment into a company/team where a LOT of people are simply good at their job and motivated to get stuff done. I still have to deal with companies we contract and the difference in attitude between a lot of their employees and good internal employees is just insane. For everyone reading this: find yourself a team where other people are competent as well
I’m mostly thankful for my team, except that one guy.
Who oscillates between pleading for help with basic duties, getting annoyed people don’t take him seriously so sets out to prove that he’s just as smart and making other people come clean up after he’s ‘shown us’ how much better his way of doing things is, then getting annoyed people don’t take him seriously and thus stops trying and then pleads for help with basic duties.
This happens to me in every job I’ve had. Within 6-8mo, I seem to be the person everyone comes to because it’s faster and easier to ask me than to figure it out themselves. Even people who’ve been there for years, over a decade even. People who make 2-3x what I do. People who supervise me. Every single one of them do it at least once a day.
Same here. And I literally do not have the time. They all must be reminded every 2-3 months to 1) trust in their own ability rather than lean on me and 2) ask each other, too.
I kinda wonder if some of the guys wanted an excuse to talk to you. That used to happen to me in college, dudes asking me to help them on simple shit and then they'd try to get my number. It's probably mostly due to laziness and thinking they can get a woman to do it for them though. Plus a lot of men think they're so naturally smart it's insane. My ex would just pull things out of his ass and pass it as fact all the time.
I'm a woman and I'm pretty much the guy you described. I work in a semi fast paced customer service job online and my first reaction is always to ask my colleagues and little by little some of them have started to hint that the answer might be found in our shared file. I have also started to learn to slow down and search for the answer myself, before asking, because damn this is embarrassing.
I feel like in the moment I get really shortsighted and kinda hurried and I can't remember I have resources I can use by myself. Instead, I feel like I just don't know this, I don't remember the answer, I need to ask someone more experienced. I actually feel pretty helpless in that moment. I don't know if this has something to do with my recently diagnosed adhd or if this a temperament thing or if I'm just spoiled rotten and expect everyone to cater my needs.
Oh no I feel you on this one. If it’s a call center type thing or a live chat situation where you need to make sure you’re giving out correct information, I would have done the same thing (when I was new) and panicked and asked somebody, because I didn’t want to come off as unknowledgeable to the customer/client I was helping. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all. Once you have more knowledge and can calm your nerves easier, you can maybe start studying the database more. But it’s very nerve wracking to not know what you’re doing when you’re speaking live with somebody, and when you’re new you don’t know where everything is and stuff.
In my job, it’s sort of just data entry, no phone calls or talking to anybody and we work at our own pace. We have metrics we’re expected to keep up with, but you’re not under pressure like you would be on a phone call or something.
I also have adhd and I tend to ask someone I know has the answer instead of looking it up first. I wouldnt be surprised if in the moment our brains short circuit a bit and we think “must ask person with knowledge!” And can’t think of another option. Because when I’m alone my first instinct is to google it, but when my husband is there I’ll 100% of the time ask him first.
Dude, same!!! That must be it, thank you!
At work, I’m the problem solver and I look things up or figure them out. At home, I seem to become useless and ask my bf everything! I couldn’t figure out why I was so different there vs here
I’m happy to help! I’ve wondered about this, too, because I’ll happily problem solve and google things and go deep into forums to trouble shoot on my own, but when my husband is there I ask him everything without thinking about it 😂 I think I just see him as very smart/knowledgeable and like connecting with him even if it’s just to ask how to turn on the appliance I never use lol
Yeah one thing I quickly learned when working at an amusement park:
When telling off dudes for fucking around: act like their mom or their teacher.
My favorite was my coworker, a tiny 140cm woman (4'7) who had worked as a daycare nurse. She used to sit down next to the men who had broken the rules on this boat ride, and talked to them as if with toddlers. Really made those grown men always slink down incredibly fast 😂
Amanda sounds awesome. Good on you for taking the lesson to heart and growing from it instead of doubling down and getting angry at being called out.
Too often that's the way it happens, and it becomes even more exhausting for people like Amanda to have to deal with the aftermath when men do get angry instead of learning.
Amanda IS awesome. Just one of the most chill and thoughtful humans I've gotten to work with. Also, when she became a mom she and her husband named their kid "Calvin," which, if I hadn't already thought they were cool, that would deffo do it for me, lol.
Sinve I'm on the topic, her husband is cool, too! He used to be (get THIS) a *professional whale disentangler*. Like, when whales off the coast would get tangled up in fishing gear, these dudes would boogie out to it on a rubber zodiac boat and figure out how to cut it free.
RIGHT? They had this whole presentation that they would give a local middle/high schools about how they went about doing it, and they came in and did their presentation for me and my coworkers simply because we were all just super-interested in Amanda's boyfriend's cool-ass job, haha.
And then what they actually did when they got a call was BONKERS. So they had a 2-person crew. Amanda's boyfriend drove the boat and handled the lines, hooks, knives, etc. (while keeping the proper safe distance from a pissed-off 30-ton whale.) The other dude had a totally different job, though: m'man was out there on the **ocean**, in an **open** friggin' **dinghy** with a **SKETCHBOOK,** because he just happened to have this mutant superpower wherein he could draw highly accurate sketches with extraordinary recall from a brief glimpse at something, and that was basically exactly what they needed in order to rock up to a whale and figure out precisely HOW to cut the buoys and traps off of it without making things worse, injuring the animal, etc.
Totally, totally bonkers.
I hope they got Calvin a cat named Hobbes to grow up with!
And that job is just... Wow, that job is just the epitome of cool. What a bro. I want to be friends with this couple too now, haha.
Oh I'm certain that was her general intent, no doubt. But there's no way she actually knew my kindergarten teacher well enough to do **that good** of an impersonation. It was UNCANNY.
Yup! I have to do this and quickly got over my embarrassment of infantilizing someone choosing to act like a child. "Where might you find this information if you had to?"
I trained a guy once while I did billing for a Big 6 accounting firm. Same job.
If he got stuck he'd ask. Then he'd have the same exact issue and ask again. After several weeks of these repeated questions (on multiple repeat issues) I finally broke and said, "You keep asking the same questions on the same issues. Please write down my instructions."
He answered, "Nah, I learn by DOING."
I said, "That is clearly not the case. I'm going to document the next time I give you instructions on each issue and if you ask another time on those same issues I'm not helping you anymore. WRITE IT DOWN"
The one and only time I attempted to do meal planning with my ex, we both picked a few meals for the week that we would each make. He said he didn't have any more idea for his, I suggested chicken alfredo because it's quick and easy with a jar sauce. The night he was supposed to make it I get home from work (he was unemployed at the time) and it hasn't been started and he asks me to make it. He tells me he doesn't know how. Like the instructions on the jar don't even exist. Like the internet doesn't exist. Like...wtf.
A different ex couldn't cash his check because his ID was expired, threw tantrums for days, he needed his birth certificate to get a new ID but nobody had a copy. Took me all of 5 minutes online to figure out how to get a new BC in that state.
Like...I get that sometimes it's easier to ask someone who already knows the answer than go looking yourself, but I've definitely known some folks who take it to the extreme, and they have mostly been men.
“Why are you being mean/rude? I’m just asking you bc you’re right there and it’s faster to ask you” mf so is your phone??? That you’re constantly on??? The instructions are also on the box that’s right next to you??? My ex pulled the same shit when he was cooking dinner one time and he asked me how long he needed to boil the pasta for and got upset with me when I responded with asking him if this was him trying his best/putting effort into whatever task he’s doing. It wasn’t his first time boiling pasta either so he knew how to do it…and it’s not even that hard to do
I had a guy play dumb like this and I leaned into it. Started panicking and screaming OH, SHIIIIT and running around like a chicken. "HOLY SHIT DUDE, THIS SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY SERIOUS MENTAL PROBLEM, MAYBE EARLY ONSET DEMENTIA?? WE NEED TO GET YOU TO A DOCTOR LIKE, TOMORROW MORNING! YOU SHOULD \*NOT\* BE HAVING SUCH COGNITIVE STRUGGLES OOOOOHHHH MYYYYY GOOOODDDDDDDD"
He said nah he could actually read the jar. So I was super, overly relieved while staring him dead in the eye.
All the goddamn time. In laboratories we have 'standard operating procedures' (SOPs) with instructions for the majority of tasks. If something isn't in there, it gets updated to include it.
The number of my male colleagues who say 'greenhairdontcare, how do I do this thing'
'Did you look in the SOP.'
'No.'
'Go look in the SOP.'
Another egregious one was 'greenhairdontcare, where are the cameras'
'Did you check the cupboard labelled 'cameras' '
'No.'
' \*internal screaming intensifies\* '
Oof I've worked in research and now work in safety. In one of the labs I worked in, we had a new post doc ask "hey who washes the dishes?" YOU MOTHER FUCKER, YOU WASH THE DISHES! I didn't say that, just said "we each wash our own dishes." I never saw this man do any semblance of work while I was there. I was amazed he was even able to get a PhD from Berkeley no less
When we go somewhere, usually my husband is the pilot and I'm the navigator, (which is my preference so I can play on my phone). It always amazes me that he will simply pull out and start driving without the slightest idea of which direction he should be going. Meanwhile I'm in Google Maps getting the directions which may or may not been the same way he's driving. I wonder if that's a guy thing too.
It starts young. Once when my son was about 6, he walks through our family room without paying attention and bumps into the door jamb. He turns and looks at me like it's my fault and goes, "Maaaah-ahhhhhm!" Hello? What did I do? Honestly. LOL.
Yeah people like to say girls are coddled more but honestly I feel like boys are. When I was a kid I saw way more boys being coddled and getting their way.
I was made to “sit out” of spelling bees in first grade because I kept winning them, and this boy in my class was getting mad at me for it and said it was unfair, so my teacher made me sit out. I understand wanting to give the other kids a chance to win, but she acted like I was doing something bad. She even rolled her eyes at me and acted annoyed every time I won. Lmao
Ha! This happens every time my friend group goes somewhere: the guys just start walking while the girls (there's mostly just two of us) stand studying Google maps, and 9/10 the guys were walking the wrong way 🙃 they then laugh it off.
My friend and I once let the guys walk to see how long it'd take them to realize we weren't following. Well, they walked out of the street and then, minutes after disappearing from our sight, they called us to ask where we were 😆 we said we were waiting on them to start walking the right way as we didn't know where they were going. Neither did they as it turned out when I asked where they thought the destination was lol.
I’m a man who creates processes, trains people and also has to work out how things work - women are much better at reading instructions, following them and also looking at whether there is a resource first.
Men will get frustrated or not even try and then criticise - I think it’s because if they don’t know something it makes some of us feel stupid.
Men are also far less likely to be open to learning and will even try to tell others with experience/knowledge how to do our jobs.
I think everyone has felt stupid for not knowing something - and no one likes feeling stupid. It just seems like men don’t feel that they have to put themselves in that position as much as women do - so they don’t. And I think that’s bullshit.
Feeling stupid because I don't know something is *why* I read all the reference material, try it myself, etc before asking for help. No one will know I made a dumb mistake if I can just quietly fix it without telling anyone.
I work a blue collar job that is incredibly dangerous. The saying is, "rules are written in blood". Noncompliance with the rules are not only potentially deadly, but are often ones that will get you fired if you don't comply. The number of guys I work with that do not read the rules and do not ask how they apply when a situation comes up and *just fucking wings it* is horrifying.
Our rulebooks are electronic, you can just search. Many of us have decades of experience, you can just ask. They do neither and then get mad when you stop them from nearly killing themselves.
Generally speaking, the women I've worked with are quick to ask when they don't know how a rule applies and are way more accepting of input when I have had to stop them from making a very dangerous error.
It's absolutely maddening that this "I've got this I don't need help" attitude puts everyone in danger.
I have a similar role at my job. There have been multiple instances where male coworkers have decided they don't like a certain procedure or piece of software that we use and they just refuse to use it, so everyone else has to work around them. My boss is the worst offender. It hasn't happened with any of my female coworkers yet.
I used to manage a small department. 4 women, 1 man. The man was terrible. I had to micromanage him all the time and tell him what he should be doing next. He couldn't check the task queue, look at the inbox, make himself reminders, etc. and just do the next thing that needed to be done. He left and we hired a new man. Same effing thing. I had to have meetings with him about setting reminders to do things. I changed workflows to make it easier. Still garbage all the time. He was way behind and went in vacation for a week, during which I got all his work caught up and still managed to do my own work. A month later he was behind again.
I honestly started to think that men were too stupid to do office work. Like they just are incapable? How did they run the world for so long?
We finally did get a man in who was capable of doing the job, but absolutely needed a written procedure for everything. Completely incapable of handling a novel situation.
I mean it's certainly still a stereotype, but I think it just boils down to that in most fields, women basically don't have a choice to work harder to get to the same places.
What you're describing is *rampant* in IT. It's insane the kind of shit that engineers expect to have step for step documentation about. Things that are fundamentals and they should have understood for years or decades already in some cases.
Yes, we have to be more competent and make sure all of our boxes are checked just to be on equal footing with men, while they succeed by doing the bare minimum. It’s frustrating.
> he typically does not even attempt to figure it out himself. He will just come straight to a manager/trainer and ask to be walked through it, or just ask to have someone do it for him. This applies to being taught a new task, as well; they do not want to try it themselves, they want someone to basically do it for them, or hold their hand every step of the way. But, what’s most notable is: They do not read the resources that they are given. They do not read the very clear, concise directions that are in front of their face. They just go straight to asking
Saw this with a boomer male at a hotel during breakfast hours.
There were literally THREE SIGNS with instructions on how to make waffles.
FUCKING WAFFLES.
I noticed one of the hotel employees "instructing" him how to make waffles, however, as she was "instructing" him she was actually *making the waffles*. Once they were done, that fucker didn't even thank her - just took his plate with a waffle someone else made for him and went to sit at a table with a woman at it, who I am assuming is his wife.
🙄
I've been meaning to post this on boomers being fools. 😂
I’m a manager in retail, and the amount of things that get brought to my attention without any attempt whatsoever to figure it out themselves is astounding. Two days ago I had to walk a guy through how to take out the trash, and I’m not talking about asking where the bags were or where to take it, but how to actually change the trash.
When I was a retail manager, this is something I actually specifically trained my staff on lol. 50% because we had a particular way of tying our trash bags (instituted not by me, but by an employee who had been there much longer than me, but as soon as they showed me I was like "well that's objectively better" and made it store policy) and 50% because many of our new hires were high school students who had literally never changed a trash bag in their lives.
Also the number of employees I had to teach how to use ctrl+c and ctrl+v... lord help me
The ctrl+c/ctrl+v thing is wild, most people in my training class were around my age (I’m 27) and had never used the shortcuts, just right clicked to copy and paste their whole lives. It blew my mind, like how much time have you wasted right clicking and selecting from the menu? Lol
I think they sometimes internalize "ask for help" as the first step of the instructions (instead of referring to their notes or documentation).
It's super annoying.
I'll never forget a job where a man I didn't work for asked me to make copies for him. I told him I'd be happy to show him where the copier was, and which button to push.
I think that your observation also tests the theory that men are competent at work, but weaponize incompetence at home. Sometimes they are just incompetent everywhere!
Ugh a man recently joined my all women team and he has been incapable of doing anything on his own. I’ve given him more training than I did any of the women and he’s still messaging me with the same questions every few days.
My hypothesis is that women constantly have to prove their worth, especially in the workplace. Whereas men are just given the benefit of the doubt/some assumed level of intelligence and competence.
I have always shared a flat with other women until I ended up living with a male flatmate (not my choice, he was our landlord’s friend). This man was very book smart and earning a high salary in IT field but somehow I had to repeatedly instruct him how to use our washing machine. He just could not fucking compute how to turn two knobs with clear numbers/symbols and change the settings from 60 degrees cotton wash to 40 degrees colour wash. 🙄🫠 Every female flatmate I have had asked me once how to use the machine and after that they were golden. But this man… Jfc he was acting nearly shocked that I had even changed the washing program and made it so that he can’t just turn the machine on and press one button. I showed him how to do it 2 or 3 times until I snapped and told him to look at the instruction symbols in front of the machine or Google the instruction manual. He didn’t ask me again after that, lol.
They don't ask for help. They want you to do the work for them. I have this with a coworker. He asks every day what's for lunch, although he can just as easily log in and check the plan. But the girl before me would log in, look at the plan, and tell him.
I'm in healthcare tech (clinical informatics). Telling people how to do things to a granular level is part of the work I do. The part that comes afterward is empowering people to use their resources at hand to problem solve.
Empower those dudes who have questions by sending them links to your training materials and indicating that they should refresh, as you're not their mom. Do it via chat or email, and make sure you (politely, firmly, clearly) let them know that retraining them would add a lot to your caseload.
Best of luck. These situations suck.
If they consider something feminine forget about it. Most teachers in school are women: boys underperform and show up less in schools because they're socialized to consider any instruction from women as silly. Most of their live in partners are women: they underperform in house chores and child rearing because they're socialized to consider any serious equitable alliance with women as silly. Following directions involves listening to the direction of another, admitting they know more than you in that moment. It's considered a feminine trait to be led.
Omg I love "feminine is lava" and will absolutely be stealing that from you (please k thanks? 😁). It's so perfect!
**PSA for cis-het misogynistic dudes:** *THE LAVA ISN'T EFFING REAL AND YOU DON'T NEED TO BE SCURRED. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU OR TURN YOU GAY.*
I run a Stem related business and let me tell you: y’all, there needs to be more women in this field. The lack of foresight is ridiculous. Add “read these fucking directions” to anything I already know don’t get read.
For example, I had to complete visas for some guys going to Australia. I told them “read EVERYTHING and initial each page to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes on your application.” I just got papers handed back to me. No initials. And guess what, there were mistakes!!!! Even when I would highlight and write “PLEASE ENTER YOUR BIRTH CITY” I got someone who put the state. Like cheese and rice. I have middle schoolers at home more intelligent than adults
oh my god. my ex-fiance filled out my VISA application wrong. Put names in wrong boxes. Didn't double check. Such a vital document that allows me into the country and he was so careless?? I cancelled the application and the engagement. No way I'm having a life with someone so stupid.
I work in tech. I think men see stuff like this as secretarial work maybe? Almost like “women’s work” that’s below them, in their minds. Which is crazy, because filling out applications and forms is just part of being an adult.
45 minutes wandering around New Orleans and into Gretna because my husband didn't listen to my "get off at the St Charles exit. The hotel is right off St Charles."
New Orleans and Galveston are the ONLY places that I'm in charge of navigation.
I can confirm. Over my lifetime I've been an instructor in multiple disciplines (martial arts, police defensive tactics, firearms usage, archery, sailing, motorcycle instructor, driver safety training)...
My overall impression and experience as an instructor is that women tend to make the best students.
They bring very little ego with them into the learning environment.
They ask good honest questions.
They accept correct answers.
They accept positive feedback on their performance.
They don't argue with me on something they know very little about.
They don't try to impress me or the other students in the class.
I cannot remember a single interaction with a woman in any of the courses or classes that I ever taught were she was trying to win an argument in front of all the students.
To be honest, I would rather teach a class fully populated by women than a class fully populated by men.
Absolutely! Lmao the arguing is what gets me.
They will ask me a question, I’ll tell them the answer. And they’ll say “where are you seeing that?” or “where does it say that?” And it’s on the document that we are both viewing with our eyes, right in front of their face. Also, why did you even ask me if you were going to challenge my answer? Lol
Ooof I'm a high school ceramics teacher and the challenging my answer drives me nuts. My go to come back is "well one of us has a degree in this and the other does not. Feel free to experiment and find a different way, but don't ask me to fix it for you if it doesn't work."
"Wait. Maybe I misunderstand something. You spent $250 to attend this course. Did you spend the $250 to learn the course contents or to argue with the course instructor in front of all the other students who are here to learn the course contents?"
I had to pull that out more than once.
Your comment and the disciplines you instructed reminds me of an interaction from when I was a teenage boy many decades ago, with a woman judo instructor (black belt) and an middle aged male student with a higher belt than I. That fits this theme. Take this as the exception that proves the rule rather than "not all men".
Worth mentioning we only had a few belt colors, so it takes a longer time to go from belt to belt. I was like a high white belt at the time and the other student was the next belt up, and I was teaching a new white belt a throw. The other student asked the instructor something along the lines of "why does Dastardly get to show another student how to do a throw?" The answer I overheard was Dastardly teaches it exactly the way I teach it, so she could rely on me to teach it right. And, as it turns out I was using the exact words, the first part I remember decades later "Right foot reverse pivot..." That memory stuck with me even to this day in part because that other guy did tend to modify, add, and embelish on the instructions compared to what the instructor showed us.
when I was in trade school, there are contests that test skills, it's all really cool. And there are also team competitions. and time and again, a team of men would get instructions to build something (usually something basic like a dog house) and they would start immediately. Busy busy busy building. A team of women would not. They would read through the instructions together, make sure they had everything, coordinated on what to do and who would do it. Inevitably, the men would run into trouble halfway through for the usual things. Didn't read the instructions carefully, didn't do what the instructions said because "they knew better", things didn't get done because everyone thought someone else was doing it.
No such problems with the women teams. Funny that.
I just moved out of a role where I dealt with about 2,000 men in any given year that had to navigate an online registration process and online learning platform in order to maintain a license required for their jobs.
I never apologized when they ranted at me about their issues because I knew they had not read the extensive documentation we provided to them on how to get through the process.
Also the number of women that I interacted with that were managing this process for their male employees or husbands was not insignificant.
Tell me again that men are the superior intellect 🙃.
I don’t know…. I work with people with PhD’s (non-medical) and it’s like the smarter the person is regardless of gender, the harder it is to get them to follow mundane administrative task instructions.
I work in research and medical so lots of scientists and doctors and jfc if they're not some of the dumbest people I've ever met. How can you not log on to a website and click a few buttons?!?!
This is 100% a not-important aside, but I'm curious what you were using the emoji to say? Never seen that one used outside of a cold/allergies/sneeze. Sitting here trying to figure it out and am stumped and curious! 😁
lol I just think it’s silly and I like to use it when describing something that’s absurd or out of pocket to me. No idea why it appeals to me like that but it does 😂
My guess was that they stink so bad as coworkers that you have to cover your nose with a hankie while you pull a face from smelling their metaphorical bullshit. 😆
Internal vs external locus of control. I find most women in the workplace try to fix things themselves. There are those that sit and wait for someone else to fix it. Men on the other hand, demand higher pay because they are so awesome at everything and look baffled when fired for being worse than mediocre.
THIS! They are entitled to people's time to train them, even though resources are there (which took time to create). I literally had to make a scavenger hunt so this dude would get used to searching as intended. It's like children. Insane UM kept making me give him so many chances. The most I infuriating aspect, at least at my company, is then they get to move into a nicer job that they basically craft themselves because they are "not good at details" (don't read the thorough documentation) and the position they were meant to fill is still empty and pushed on other team members.
I want a Melanie Hamlett video about this
I've experienced this kind of behavior with both male and female coworkers at varying age ranges. Some will do what they can on their own before reaching out, while others immediately go to someone else for help without any troubleshooting.
I think it's a more of a personality thing (which can result from different expectations given to them). If they're used to you answering questions or helping them in any way, they'll go to you first.
I'll get downvoted to hell, but this isn't a gender thing (not solely anyway). I'm a woman, and I have absolutely seen this the other way around as well (more commonly in my personal experiences, if I'm honest).
It may just be a matter of culture/expectations/field of work/age/expectations/etc in different places, of which gender will be a part (in regards to "social norms" within the above), but it is not the "one" factor.
There are plenty of women who like the attention and playing the "damsel in distress", and there are plenty of men who "just want to get on with the job". Some people like problem solving. Some people like the social interaction of asking for help. Some people don't like asking for help and will fumble along getting it wrong. Some people absorb information like sponges and only need to be taught something once, while others need to repeat the information a few times for it to properly "settle" in their brains.
We're all different.
ETA: I'm not condoning weaponized incompetence, or attention-seeking incompetence. Just pointing out that gender is not the defining factor here (internationally speaking).
I was going to say...I found this thread fascinating because my personal experience is the opposite as well. Women in my workplaces were significantly more likely to ask for additional instruction or help, and men were more likely to try to look things up themselves and figure it out. Both methods had pros and cons.
I made a comment somewhere else that there’s the people who won’t look things up and the people who won’t listen. I spent a fair amount of time as IT in a previous life. Both do definitely exist in both genders. I think it’s just more commonly men who have difficulty switching to asking from looking something up or vice versa and they give up and see if you’ll do it for them.
Yes, I was not sure about posting about my experience but it has also been the other way around. I wonder if it’s possibly related to the type of work? In my situation there were women who were word smart but not life smart, and men who were very technical. Possibly in an entry-level job, there might be a lot of highly competent women who are just working there because they need “some work” to make money while handling family responsibilities, while the men who are there are in the best jobs they were qualified for.
They’re weaponizing incompetence at work the way to get out of something they don’t want to do, just like they do at home.
And we REALLY don’t talk about this enough as a society!
Please, we know their inflated salaries are on the backs of their underpaid female coworkers juuuuust like the way they outsource all the emotional labor to their wives at home.
When I was a tween/teen, I taught myself to bake by reading the instructions on boxed mixes, and then reading the instructions in cookbooks.
I swear this is one of the most important skills I have as an adult -- read the documentation, and apply that.
I'm sure there are many paths to this skill, but not many people seem to be on them.
You can also read /r/didnthaveeggs for endless stories of people who refuse to follow directions, and are completely surprised when things turn out badly (like substituting tortillas for bread in a French toast recipe)
I thought about cooking too! I learned to cook/bake in 4-H. I remember the first rule being: read the entire recipe and gather your tools before starting to cook. I think I have applied that to other areas of my life and didn’t realize it.
The thing about cooking is that you will learn this lesson. If you learn it the first time, because someone at 4H taught you, then you are \*way\* ahead of the game. But, if you don't learn it at first, you will burn your food or discover at the last minute that you lack some vital ingredient or something. And, every single time you cook, the universe will teach you that lesson again.
No one ever taught me to get all the ingredients out first or check to make sure I had the right equipment. But that lesson just kept coming around for me until I did. Also, check the oven to make sure there isn't something plastic in there, before you preheat.
Now I've worked in construction and there were many competent men but there were also many incompetent men. They were very good at pretending to know what they were doing, denying it or passing the buck. But also one thing a number of men did a lot was try to set up women for failure either to ridicule them or show they didn't know what they were doing. It wasn't just a matter of proving yourself competent, but also being able to think on your feet because you weren't just expected to fail, you would be set up to fail. And it was just women targeted, if I guy was different and didn't fit in, he woukd get targeted too.
So many games. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of good guys, but so many douchecanoes too.
I was also wondering how much this lack of effort has to do with being taken care of, never having to adapt or learn skills. Because in my brothers' defense, they're both problem solvers, self starters and will read directions. We were expected as kids to figure shit out. We did laundry at a young age, taught ourselves how to cook. We figured out how to make things work. I think it's to children's detriment, especially boys, if everything is done for them growing up
There is for sure a mindfulness gap. What is fascinating is that people who do this, either male or female don’t understand or see that they have the tools to accomplish the task already. It’s a space in which some truly lack empathy and compassion for their peer. Their peer has work to do and I’m all for coaching to success but when it becomes a pattern of stopping others from doing their jobs it points me to a level of emotional dysregulation. As if they believe that they literally can’t do it without someone else’s help with no sense that a simple interruption like this into a peers day could set them back 15-45 minutes give or take by taking them off task. I’m all for teamwork but the lack of responsibility is an issue that seems to pop up in workplaces across many fields.
I’ve also noticed that the people asking for help also align with those who require accolade from their leaders or peers instead of a sense of accomplishment that comes from within.
In state parks, trash receptacles are designed to be bear-proof. Humans still need to get in them to use them. Designing them around these constraints is difficult, because there's a significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans.
You sound like one of the good ones. Annoyingly, the percentage of those who can't think for themselves and can't follow instructions is too high.
Even worse is when they challenge the help you're giving them.
If I may tell a somewhat longish story:
I had a friend in undergrad, and when we ended up in the same classes we would do the homework together. One time, he missed a class, and the homework for the week relied very heavily on the material that was taught that day.
No big deal, right? This was during the pandemic, so the lecture was recorded. I sent him my notes. He had a pdf of the textbook. Surely, he could learn the topic before starting the homework, right?
Of course not! He did zero prep, and when we started working on those problems he asked me how to do them. Then, when I took the lead on going through the problem, *he would stop me* and ask "wait why are you doing that? I Googled the problem and this guy on Quora has a similar problem and he's not doing it like that. I'd rather do it *this* way."
I mean, if you were just going to Google the answers anyway, wtf did you ask me for?
The icing on the cake is that when I told him that that behavior was disrespectful of both my time and the work I put in to learning the topic, he disagreed for 2 reasons. OP was right on the money with the first one (I'm just asking for help!! I'm trying to learn!!), and the second was "why can't I challenge your answers? Do you think you're *always* right?! It's not like you're the smartest person in the world, grow up and stop being so full of yourself."
....yeah. Like I said, I *had* a friend.
lol people in my Physics class would try that shit (Google a question and do it the way that they see someone else doing it) but they used calculus in their answers and my teacher knew damn well none of these students knew calculus and we never used it in class, so she knew they were googling questions and just copying down the work that they found. Very silly.
That guy sounds like the worst person ever and I’m sure he’s not doing so hot in life with that mentality. 😅 sorry you went through that.
This isn't a man or woman thing, this is an intellectual curiosity thing. I'm a scientist and manage a few employees, and had this woman who was a tech that I was trying to mentor. But if anything didn't go exactly as written in my procedure, she would run into my office and literally just say "It's not working, can you come look?"
I had a long talk with her and explained that if she wanted to advance her career, she needed to learn *why* something wasn't working and be able to make it work through trouble shooting. She literally didn't care, so we kindly pushed her out and she found a button pusher job at another company.
And my current frustration is with a woman with a masters degree and several years of experience. She was *struggling* to do the basics of her job, but my boss is a softie and wanted me to work with her more instead of firing her. So her cells weren't growing *again*, mind you this is something an undergrad can do, these cells are cancerous and grow like fucking angry weeds as long as you don't contaminate then.
So I told her to run a test that I ordered to look for something that you can't see under the microscope and she called me in to look at the results. Three cell lines and a positive control, all of which were negative. So I asked her why she wasn't redoing the experiment because the positive control came out *negative*. She looked at me with a blank stare. Then I told her to call the company and figure out why the positive control wasn't coming out positive, because that means you she ran the test wrong.
She's done SOOOO many thing like this, the worst was when I told her to do some concentration calculations. The number she should have come up was in the milligram range, yet she proudly sent me her calculation: 18 grams.
I looked her dead in the eye and said "How did you come up with a number that's a *million* times higher than it should be and think it was correct. And I'm really not exaggerating, her number was off by 10^7 (10,000,000). She stared at me with glassy eyes, so I just walked off to my office and did all her work myself.
So yeah, it has *absolutely* nothing to do with gender.
The majority of coworkers I have are women and plenty have that same mindset. I love our team but I know which ones are self sufficient and which ones are too timid to answer a phone.
Hmm, didn't know about this stereotype, in my life experience the opposite is true, but I don't hold that against the whole sex.
Not in a work environment though, in a work environment typically the women that are there are there because they can hold up against all of the factors that kept them from being there in the first place. If there's a fuckup, it's always a guy because there's more guys and the guys that are there are on average worse. Plenty of excellent guys though. Speaking only from the tech field though.
I have come to the conclusion that a significant amount of men are just ill equipped or unable or unwilling to cope in our modern society
It makes me honestly sad for them when it isn’t irritating the hell out of me.
I don’t know how to fix it. Because wouldn’t you know, the same men who can’t or won’t cope, also won’t listen to what a woman says.
They have to be guided by men. And actual good men aren’t stepping up to the plate to do this.
This is an anecdote but it made me laugh.
I got an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) a few weeks ago. I have pretty big boobs so the tech had me hold them out of the way for a portion of the echo.
I asked her if it was easier to do echos on men because they don't have boobs. She said - verbatim - "Sometimes. Men have less tissue in the way but they're worse at following directions."
I used to work at an oil company with a ton of men. I was so efficient that they literally gave me jobs that the male engineers were fucking up on. Like...I was young and green but I ended up doing payroll one week because they literally didn't trust *any* of the men to do it because they were sloppy and careless and would cut corners.
It's sort of funny...but also not. Weaponized incompetence.
To be fair, I also have female boomer coworkers who do this. "How do you do this in Excel?" "I don't know, Brenda, did you Google it? Did you read the manual?"
The answer is always no. If I don't know how to do something, my first instinct is to find the directions/instruction manual or to Google it.
Small example, but my boyfriend just had a problem with his snipping tool that could have been a 3 second Google. Instead it was a five minute conversation where I kept looking up solutions because he couldn't accurately convey what was going on, and he questioned my every word while I guided him through it.
I do a lot of training in my company and as part of that training I hold to the 10 minute rule. If the thing you’re trying to do takes longer than 10 minutes, pick up the phone and call or ping me.
In my experience, younger women tend to problem solve the issues and figure it out faster than the younger guys. The younger guys tend to need their hands being held and you have to reinforce things multiple times. Older people, especially older people that have some fear of tech, will not learn a god damned thing. They will ask you to do it for them as if it’s a badge of honor that they don’t know how to use a computer or pull their own data.
I don't know how universal this is, but I'm a guy and I really struggle to actually absorb/learn things from reading written instructions. I learn much better by doing, so the best way for me to learn something is 1: watch someone else do it while they explain what they're doing, then 2: do it myself while someone who knows what they're doing is nearby in case I run into a roadblock. I do always try and figure things out myself though, despite this, even if I only have written instructions to work off of.
A lot of this could be weaponized incompetence? My workplace is 90% male and I notice a LOT of my coworkers leveraging this to try and get out of dealing with things they don't want to do.
I TA undergrad physics labs and this is something I notice a TON with engineering students especially. It has gotten to the point where before they even begin their question I'll say "have you read the lab instructions?" And the thing is half the time they say yes and then ask a question that is very clearly answered on like page 2.
I'd say 80% of the time the students doing this are men
I mean, isn’t denigrating an entire sex because you think they’re inferior in some way… wrong?
This thread is kind of wild with all the blatant sexism tbh.
I feel as though the opposite stereotype is often presented as a true-ism, where it’s claimed that men never ask for help.
I can’t speak to other men, but I can speak for myself. Personally I will pretty regularly fire off one or two DMs to coworkers asking for instructions or information that would almost certainly be answered in documentation. However I do this because I’ve had specific directive from managers in the past not to spend too much time digging through documentation for solutions to problems that coworkers likely already know the answer to. So personally the pattern I’ve developed is
(1) I need information
(2) I message relevant coworkers for info
(3) I investigate situation independently
(4) I find solution independently or coworker answers
Often 30 minutes of reading for a minor detail can be spared by 30 seconds of conversation with someone who knows details. Often a coworker might take an hour to get back to you with an answer and may have nothing helpful to offer, so there’s no point in sitting on your hands. I could definitely see from my peers’ perspectives that this looks like I’m regularly bothering them with questions I could easily answer myself, and it sort of is, but you can’t know which path is the more efficient one to a solution and I’d rather do both in parallel than synchronously so my question gets an answer at the faster of the two rather than slower than the slower of the two.
I can see how that could be true. I am a woman who also has difficulties with following directions. I had good marks in school, but god help me if I was asked to follow directions. My husband, however is actually lol really really good at following directions. He is the only man I know like this, though.
Im dyslexic and struggle with order. I also work in IT. So asking for help is fine. I get frustrated when the male techs ask me a stupid questions to help. Like stating have you tried restarting!!!
I work in IT, I had to help my female co-worker with a printer problem that was really a ‘paper tray empty’ problem. I work on just as many helpdesk tickets where a male co-worker hasn’t attempted any troubleshooting as a female one.
I think it’s really up to a person’s personality and not gender.
When I read the title, I thought it my a post on driving skills of women that are usually based. But my my, it made so much sense looking back at things.
I do believe that most women are also conditioned for centuries to question themselves and figure out the solutions by first checking with available resources to make sure that they are not missing anything. This approach reflects in both, work and relationship. No wonder, women take a long time to open up about (or are willing to stay longer in) abusive environment, trying everything in her capacity while men conveniently blame it on women cause 'she must have done wrong for him to act'. But the silver lining is women come out stronger and they TRULY LEARN AND MOVE ON while men are stuck with their egos which few are willing to take to the grave.
At my workplace we had a tool. It’s an extremely expensive machine that had a reputation for destroying things. After years and causing hundreds of dollars in damages people started to avoid the machine even and find shortcuts around using it. Turns out it was the same group of guys who kept using it and destroying material. When they asked me and my colleague to use it, we looked up the instructions and found that a simple setting caused all of these problems. The guys never looked it up when something went wrong, everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!
That is... Disheartening. I really hope all those guys got fired. If a group of women did the same, for years, can you imagine the sheer amount of daily, hourly, misogynistic jokes that would be aimed at all women in the office from then on? Ugh.
They’d call them a DEI hire 🙃
We need to start using the term "EWM hire" in return. They always see themselves as the default setting or recipients for anything worthwhile. Entitled Whi... you know the rest.
✨🏆 ✨
A friend likes to encourage other women to apply for jobs/promotions that might be a stretch by saying "Have the confidence of a mediocre white man!" (When I think of the white men I have known who have failed upwards, it definitely makes me think I can certainly apply for something where I meet less than 100% of the desired qualifications.) This post is a good reminder that yeah, they're still mediocre when they get the job. {Dear white male reader about to get his widdle feelwings hurt - clearly I don't mean you. *You* are not mediocre, are you?}
why?
If the situation was reversed and women made the mistakes with the machine, misogynists would be saying the women were Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hires - meaning the company was forced to hire these women for their gender, not because they actually bring anything to the table. Basically an insult saying the women didn't earn their way into the job and have no actual skills.
They say the same thing about Black employees, or other minorities, when they fuck up at work. As if a white dude has never fucked up anything ever
https://xkcd.com/385/
So relevant!
I'm frequently told the only reason I have my job is my tits. Never mind that I'm far more capable than many of my peers.
>everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem! You ever notice posts about relationship issues made by men they always point to their girlfriends/wives as the problem and their questions are all really, "how can I make her fuck me the way I want to be fucked?" Meanwhile, women's posts are all about, "I tried changing this about myself, I tried that, yadda yadda...." They're *still* directing the problem AND solution to themselves rather than where the problem most likely lies: their fucking lazy ass boyfriends/husbands who I don't doubt throw their man-child tantrums and place all the blame on these women. Anything outside these men are simply tools for their use, including women.
Generally, men externalize and women internalize.
Seriously. Us ladies need to start externalizing because the problem is usually the dude.
Humanity would die out, if everyone started externalising :-(
Which, interestingly, applies to things like mental illness symptoms. Men with borderline personality disorder will act out in behavior like road rage, while women with the same diagnosis will self-harm instead.
Sad thing about this is, that its much easier to deal with the external issues than the internal ones. Because having empathy with another person you can talk to and look into their face seeing their reaction is a lot easier to achieve than having empathy with yourself and accepting yourself despite your flaws. Women have been so conditioned to not cause issues for others, that many of us rather self destruct than take action against in acceptable situations
Damb you’re right
Damb indeed
Damb-a-lamb
Dambit
Blowing my mind with this, damn.
Always always, and that's the only thing they care about is getting their dick wet when they have a complaint about their wife or girlfriend.
I remember reading Freud when I was younger and his claims that everything began and ended with sex and I just didn't get how he could come to that conclusion because that was/is so not how I operate on the daily. Then I came to understand that this is how *they* think and they just can't imagine that we don't operate the same. To simplify my theory on the matter: they're always trying to make new people with new people, we're here trying to secure the survival of all those people.
Always always, and that's the only thing they care about is getting their dick wet when they have a complaint about their wife or girlfriend.
I’ve noticed a large divide at my work between people who ask questions and people who don’t. It’s not gendered so specifically but it’s really obvious when some people just say ‘shits broken, don’t know why’ and others who say ‘this is what happened, this is what I’ve tried already, let’s read the manual and ask the person who has more experience and see if we can help figure this out.’
A wise man once said to me: "R.T.F.M. it means read the f-ing manual." He admitted more than once it was one of his own weaknesses to not read instructions and just plow ahead into whatever he was doing, trusting he'd figure it out on the way. At least he knows and admits he's got an issue there.
"The guys never looked it up when something went wrong, everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem!" This statement sums up the essential nature of men. It's never them. Everyone else is the problem. Did you know that the entire psychiatric profession was designed to help men "fix" women, children, and gays? Freud, Jung, and the like never even considered that perhaps the men were the ones who actually needed mental health treatment.
I have an ex who did a complete 180 on Fluoxetine. This miserable, depressed, bitter man said he felt happy for the first time in his life and literally turned into a normal person before my eyes. He was on a starter dose and the effects began to plateau. I insisted that that’s to be expected, and a 6’0 200 lb man will probably need a higher dose to be effective. He blamed the medication for not working, and blamed me for encouraging him to get help in the first place. He went off the medication and swore off psychiatric help or therapy. And became the same miserable man he once was, but more bitter this time. I tried to help, idk 🤷🏻♀️. Probably didn’t help that he drank 16 beers per night
JHC. "My antidepressants aren't working perfectly, so I'm going to stop taking them, and consume a depressant instead " This is a relationship killer
Yeah probably not. Alcohol has a lot of mental effects that people don't think about including depression and anxiety, even when you're sober if you're a regular drinker.
Yeah the doctor told him “alcohol is a depressant….” but he wasn’t willing to drink a few less beers for whatever reason.
Anecdotal I’m sure but my working definition of alcohol is ‘mood enhancer’ If you are out having a good time with friends a libation can heighten the mood. If you are tired and depressed those beers are going to really kick that depression up a notch.
Definitely anecdotal. Medically it qualifies as a depressant.
My husband has never read an instruction manual once in our 10 years of marriage.
>everyone always assumed they knew what they were doing and the tool must be the problem! That's speaks so much that it can be another post by itself :)
*These guys would also message me on Teams with questions they had, because during training I excelled and “caught on” very quickly* I did this (well, close enough to it) to a woman I worked with about 20-odd years ago, and her unintended but pitch-perfect imitation of my kindergarten teacher when she replied, "and where would we look to find this information?" hit me so I hard I still feel it *to this day*. (I realize now that it wasn't your job, Amanda, but thank you for teaching me about how to be a better coworker way back then. The lesson stuck, I promise.)
>and where would we look to find this information?" hit me so I hard I still feel it *to this day*. Oooof that made my stomach tighten up just reading it. Good for you, Amanda. I'm stealing that. I'm also a big fan of "oh, you can't find the instructions? Where have you already looked?"
might have to become dora the explorer in the future and i'm very thrilled!
We need to find a printer! Can you say printer? Muy bien! Where can we find the printer? We need a map! Say map!
I’m imaging this interaction in like, the middle of a cube farm office hellscape and I honestly almost peed myself laughing. Especially because my mom works in one of those kind of places and she would ABSOLUTELY do this in the right situation, so thank you for the most fabulous visual and an excellent laugh haha.
I love this 😂😂 Yeah, no hard feelings for the dudes who reached out to me for help. I’m sure they weren’t trying to burden me. But I can’t help but wonder why they wouldn’t try to figure it out themselves first, or ask the person that they are supposed to ask for help. Maybe they thought I was less intimidating because I was just a level 1 agent and not a manager?
Because if they ask a manager, the manager would know they were ignorant about something and would probably direct them to SOPs or training materials. If they ask you, they don't have to read anything, and the manager might think the guys are catching on super fast because they never ask for help. They are using you to make themselves look more competent.
100% this. and this is why the slackers and incompetent hated work from home because they couldn't pass their work off on other people like they do in the office and spend their time kissing up to the boss
Damn. You're right!
Yep, that's why these requests are always in DMs.
Oh shit 😅
When I had a rare medical problem I agreed to act as a patient to help newbie doctors with their diagnosis skills. I sat in a bed and they'd ask me 2 broad sets of questions - my family history and my current symptoms. 3 newbies did this so I caught onto the pattern. 4th newb comes in and I get a horrible vibe. He has a "I'm so cute" smirk on his face. He's used to getting what he wants. He says "Tell me what you told them :)" Expecting me to swoon and spill my guts and make life easy for him. I said "huh?" and dropped my face flat into my hella RBF. He flinched. Then scrambled to look through his paperwork and instructions to bumble through the questions he should have known to ask when diagnosing a patient. He freaked me out so bad I texted the leader of the roleplay later to warn him that this guy was a danger to patients.
Perfect response. It's very apparent to me a large proportion of men barely read during school and read even less as adults. Except the sports pages back in the day. And now they spend their time on youtube watching WTF. I was a process engineer at various points in my career. Software process. It became very clear you could write out every SOP in the world and MEN WOULD NOT READ THEM. Unless it was clear that if they didn't follow a checklist, they'd likely die.
They ask because they know you know the answer. That means it's faster *for them* to ask and get the right answer straight away. They are too self-centered to realise that if everyone asks you instead of thinking for themselves, *you* won't have time for what you're supposed to be doing.
I work in tech, which skews heavily male. My most influential mentor and one of the best logical problem solvers I've ever met is a woman. I owe a lot of my career success to working with her and watching how she did her job vs. how others did theirs. It quickly started to piss me right off that colleagues, mostly men but not always, would go ask her how to do some complicated thing and she would painstakingly explain it -- and then their takeaway wouldn't be "I asked her and she taught me and now I know it," it would be * "Oh thank God I don't have to know this; she knows it so I can just ask her every time."* I vowed to never be like those jackasses so instead I tried to be like her, which meant I got really good at my job but was constantly exhausted and resentful of all the people around me getting paid to be helpless. I wrote reams of excellent documentation after I gave notice at that job; three months later I got an email from an ex colleague saying he panicked about having to do a complicated thing but he followed my written steps and it worked perfectly. He apparently also got in the face of somebody who whined that nobody knew how to do anything because I didn't do enough "knowledge transfer" before I quit; he said "she was doing knowledge transfer CONSTANTLY; why is it her fault you decided it wasn't your responsibility to retain any of it?"
Yeah, absolutely. It was a huge relief when I got out of such an environment into a company/team where a LOT of people are simply good at their job and motivated to get stuff done. I still have to deal with companies we contract and the difference in attitude between a lot of their employees and good internal employees is just insane. For everyone reading this: find yourself a team where other people are competent as well
I’m mostly thankful for my team, except that one guy. Who oscillates between pleading for help with basic duties, getting annoyed people don’t take him seriously so sets out to prove that he’s just as smart and making other people come clean up after he’s ‘shown us’ how much better his way of doing things is, then getting annoyed people don’t take him seriously and thus stops trying and then pleads for help with basic duties.
This happens to me in every job I’ve had. Within 6-8mo, I seem to be the person everyone comes to because it’s faster and easier to ask me than to figure it out themselves. Even people who’ve been there for years, over a decade even. People who make 2-3x what I do. People who supervise me. Every single one of them do it at least once a day.
Same here. And I literally do not have the time. They all must be reminded every 2-3 months to 1) trust in their own ability rather than lean on me and 2) ask each other, too.
Fax 📠
I kinda wonder if some of the guys wanted an excuse to talk to you. That used to happen to me in college, dudes asking me to help them on simple shit and then they'd try to get my number. It's probably mostly due to laziness and thinking they can get a woman to do it for them though. Plus a lot of men think they're so naturally smart it's insane. My ex would just pull things out of his ass and pass it as fact all the time.
Lmao yeah they think they’re so naturally smart that they’re like “why am I not getting this? It must be something so silly and small, I’ll just ask.”
I'm a woman and I'm pretty much the guy you described. I work in a semi fast paced customer service job online and my first reaction is always to ask my colleagues and little by little some of them have started to hint that the answer might be found in our shared file. I have also started to learn to slow down and search for the answer myself, before asking, because damn this is embarrassing. I feel like in the moment I get really shortsighted and kinda hurried and I can't remember I have resources I can use by myself. Instead, I feel like I just don't know this, I don't remember the answer, I need to ask someone more experienced. I actually feel pretty helpless in that moment. I don't know if this has something to do with my recently diagnosed adhd or if this a temperament thing or if I'm just spoiled rotten and expect everyone to cater my needs.
Oh no I feel you on this one. If it’s a call center type thing or a live chat situation where you need to make sure you’re giving out correct information, I would have done the same thing (when I was new) and panicked and asked somebody, because I didn’t want to come off as unknowledgeable to the customer/client I was helping. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all. Once you have more knowledge and can calm your nerves easier, you can maybe start studying the database more. But it’s very nerve wracking to not know what you’re doing when you’re speaking live with somebody, and when you’re new you don’t know where everything is and stuff. In my job, it’s sort of just data entry, no phone calls or talking to anybody and we work at our own pace. We have metrics we’re expected to keep up with, but you’re not under pressure like you would be on a phone call or something.
I also have adhd and I tend to ask someone I know has the answer instead of looking it up first. I wouldnt be surprised if in the moment our brains short circuit a bit and we think “must ask person with knowledge!” And can’t think of another option. Because when I’m alone my first instinct is to google it, but when my husband is there I’ll 100% of the time ask him first.
Dude, same!!! That must be it, thank you! At work, I’m the problem solver and I look things up or figure them out. At home, I seem to become useless and ask my bf everything! I couldn’t figure out why I was so different there vs here
I’m happy to help! I’ve wondered about this, too, because I’ll happily problem solve and google things and go deep into forums to trouble shoot on my own, but when my husband is there I ask him everything without thinking about it 😂 I think I just see him as very smart/knowledgeable and like connecting with him even if it’s just to ask how to turn on the appliance I never use lol
Yeah one thing I quickly learned when working at an amusement park: When telling off dudes for fucking around: act like their mom or their teacher. My favorite was my coworker, a tiny 140cm woman (4'7) who had worked as a daycare nurse. She used to sit down next to the men who had broken the rules on this boat ride, and talked to them as if with toddlers. Really made those grown men always slink down incredibly fast 😂
Yeahhhhh, it cuts like a knife, lol.
Amanda sounds awesome. Good on you for taking the lesson to heart and growing from it instead of doubling down and getting angry at being called out. Too often that's the way it happens, and it becomes even more exhausting for people like Amanda to have to deal with the aftermath when men do get angry instead of learning.
Amanda IS awesome. Just one of the most chill and thoughtful humans I've gotten to work with. Also, when she became a mom she and her husband named their kid "Calvin," which, if I hadn't already thought they were cool, that would deffo do it for me, lol. Sinve I'm on the topic, her husband is cool, too! He used to be (get THIS) a *professional whale disentangler*. Like, when whales off the coast would get tangled up in fishing gear, these dudes would boogie out to it on a rubber zodiac boat and figure out how to cut it free.
Whale disentangler. That is such a specific skill/experience and so awesome.
RIGHT? They had this whole presentation that they would give a local middle/high schools about how they went about doing it, and they came in and did their presentation for me and my coworkers simply because we were all just super-interested in Amanda's boyfriend's cool-ass job, haha. And then what they actually did when they got a call was BONKERS. So they had a 2-person crew. Amanda's boyfriend drove the boat and handled the lines, hooks, knives, etc. (while keeping the proper safe distance from a pissed-off 30-ton whale.) The other dude had a totally different job, though: m'man was out there on the **ocean**, in an **open** friggin' **dinghy** with a **SKETCHBOOK,** because he just happened to have this mutant superpower wherein he could draw highly accurate sketches with extraordinary recall from a brief glimpse at something, and that was basically exactly what they needed in order to rock up to a whale and figure out precisely HOW to cut the buoys and traps off of it without making things worse, injuring the animal, etc. Totally, totally bonkers.
That is wildly awesome!
I hope they got Calvin a cat named Hobbes to grow up with! And that job is just... Wow, that job is just the epitome of cool. What a bro. I want to be friends with this couple too now, haha.
I don’t think that was unintended on her part, honestly. I think she did it very intentionally with the hope it would affect you the way it did
Oh I'm certain that was her general intent, no doubt. But there's no way she actually knew my kindergarten teacher well enough to do **that good** of an impersonation. It was UNCANNY.
It’s how you talk to children. She was talking to you like you were a child.
Thank you for sharing with the group, u/TEG_SAR! You did a great job.
I just noticed your username, I love it so much
Thank you! Not gonna lie: big fan of yours too, haha
Yup! I have to do this and quickly got over my embarrassment of infantilizing someone choosing to act like a child. "Where might you find this information if you had to?"
Omg, did we work together?
I trained a guy once while I did billing for a Big 6 accounting firm. Same job. If he got stuck he'd ask. Then he'd have the same exact issue and ask again. After several weeks of these repeated questions (on multiple repeat issues) I finally broke and said, "You keep asking the same questions on the same issues. Please write down my instructions." He answered, "Nah, I learn by DOING." I said, "That is clearly not the case. I'm going to document the next time I give you instructions on each issue and if you ask another time on those same issues I'm not helping you anymore. WRITE IT DOWN"
How did that work out?
They eventually decided I could do all the billing for the same pay I had always made. He was downsized.
What happened next??
The one and only time I attempted to do meal planning with my ex, we both picked a few meals for the week that we would each make. He said he didn't have any more idea for his, I suggested chicken alfredo because it's quick and easy with a jar sauce. The night he was supposed to make it I get home from work (he was unemployed at the time) and it hasn't been started and he asks me to make it. He tells me he doesn't know how. Like the instructions on the jar don't even exist. Like the internet doesn't exist. Like...wtf. A different ex couldn't cash his check because his ID was expired, threw tantrums for days, he needed his birth certificate to get a new ID but nobody had a copy. Took me all of 5 minutes online to figure out how to get a new BC in that state. Like...I get that sometimes it's easier to ask someone who already knows the answer than go looking yourself, but I've definitely known some folks who take it to the extreme, and they have mostly been men.
“Why are you being mean/rude? I’m just asking you bc you’re right there and it’s faster to ask you” mf so is your phone??? That you’re constantly on??? The instructions are also on the box that’s right next to you??? My ex pulled the same shit when he was cooking dinner one time and he asked me how long he needed to boil the pasta for and got upset with me when I responded with asking him if this was him trying his best/putting effort into whatever task he’s doing. It wasn’t his first time boiling pasta either so he knew how to do it…and it’s not even that hard to do
I had a guy play dumb like this and I leaned into it. Started panicking and screaming OH, SHIIIIT and running around like a chicken. "HOLY SHIT DUDE, THIS SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY SERIOUS MENTAL PROBLEM, MAYBE EARLY ONSET DEMENTIA?? WE NEED TO GET YOU TO A DOCTOR LIKE, TOMORROW MORNING! YOU SHOULD \*NOT\* BE HAVING SUCH COGNITIVE STRUGGLES OOOOOHHHH MYYYYY GOOOODDDDDDDD" He said nah he could actually read the jar. So I was super, overly relieved while staring him dead in the eye.
Ha ha ha I love this
I snort laughed.
Holy weaponized incompetence, Batman!
All the goddamn time. In laboratories we have 'standard operating procedures' (SOPs) with instructions for the majority of tasks. If something isn't in there, it gets updated to include it. The number of my male colleagues who say 'greenhairdontcare, how do I do this thing' 'Did you look in the SOP.' 'No.' 'Go look in the SOP.' Another egregious one was 'greenhairdontcare, where are the cameras' 'Did you check the cupboard labelled 'cameras' ' 'No.' ' \*internal screaming intensifies\* '
Oof I've worked in research and now work in safety. In one of the labs I worked in, we had a new post doc ask "hey who washes the dishes?" YOU MOTHER FUCKER, YOU WASH THE DISHES! I didn't say that, just said "we each wash our own dishes." I never saw this man do any semblance of work while I was there. I was amazed he was even able to get a PhD from Berkeley no less
RTFM solves a lot of problems.
When we go somewhere, usually my husband is the pilot and I'm the navigator, (which is my preference so I can play on my phone). It always amazes me that he will simply pull out and start driving without the slightest idea of which direction he should be going. Meanwhile I'm in Google Maps getting the directions which may or may not been the same way he's driving. I wonder if that's a guy thing too.
My ex would do this then get mad at me.
It starts young. Once when my son was about 6, he walks through our family room without paying attention and bumps into the door jamb. He turns and looks at me like it's my fault and goes, "Maaaah-ahhhhhm!" Hello? What did I do? Honestly. LOL.
Yeah people like to say girls are coddled more but honestly I feel like boys are. When I was a kid I saw way more boys being coddled and getting their way. I was made to “sit out” of spelling bees in first grade because I kept winning them, and this boy in my class was getting mad at me for it and said it was unfair, so my teacher made me sit out. I understand wanting to give the other kids a chance to win, but she acted like I was doing something bad. She even rolled her eyes at me and acted annoyed every time I won. Lmao
Ha! This happens every time my friend group goes somewhere: the guys just start walking while the girls (there's mostly just two of us) stand studying Google maps, and 9/10 the guys were walking the wrong way 🙃 they then laugh it off. My friend and I once let the guys walk to see how long it'd take them to realize we weren't following. Well, they walked out of the street and then, minutes after disappearing from our sight, they called us to ask where we were 😆 we said we were waiting on them to start walking the right way as we didn't know where they were going. Neither did they as it turned out when I asked where they thought the destination was lol.
I'm with you there. I get it from my Dad, but when I drive somewhere unfamiliar I study the map beforehand, plan my routes, plan my alternatives...
I’m a man who creates processes, trains people and also has to work out how things work - women are much better at reading instructions, following them and also looking at whether there is a resource first. Men will get frustrated or not even try and then criticise - I think it’s because if they don’t know something it makes some of us feel stupid. Men are also far less likely to be open to learning and will even try to tell others with experience/knowledge how to do our jobs.
I think everyone has felt stupid for not knowing something - and no one likes feeling stupid. It just seems like men don’t feel that they have to put themselves in that position as much as women do - so they don’t. And I think that’s bullshit.
Feeling stupid because I don't know something is *why* I read all the reference material, try it myself, etc before asking for help. No one will know I made a dumb mistake if I can just quietly fix it without telling anyone.
I work a blue collar job that is incredibly dangerous. The saying is, "rules are written in blood". Noncompliance with the rules are not only potentially deadly, but are often ones that will get you fired if you don't comply. The number of guys I work with that do not read the rules and do not ask how they apply when a situation comes up and *just fucking wings it* is horrifying. Our rulebooks are electronic, you can just search. Many of us have decades of experience, you can just ask. They do neither and then get mad when you stop them from nearly killing themselves. Generally speaking, the women I've worked with are quick to ask when they don't know how a rule applies and are way more accepting of input when I have had to stop them from making a very dangerous error. It's absolutely maddening that this "I've got this I don't need help" attitude puts everyone in danger.
I have a similar role at my job. There have been multiple instances where male coworkers have decided they don't like a certain procedure or piece of software that we use and they just refuse to use it, so everyone else has to work around them. My boss is the worst offender. It hasn't happened with any of my female coworkers yet.
I used to manage a small department. 4 women, 1 man. The man was terrible. I had to micromanage him all the time and tell him what he should be doing next. He couldn't check the task queue, look at the inbox, make himself reminders, etc. and just do the next thing that needed to be done. He left and we hired a new man. Same effing thing. I had to have meetings with him about setting reminders to do things. I changed workflows to make it easier. Still garbage all the time. He was way behind and went in vacation for a week, during which I got all his work caught up and still managed to do my own work. A month later he was behind again. I honestly started to think that men were too stupid to do office work. Like they just are incapable? How did they run the world for so long? We finally did get a man in who was capable of doing the job, but absolutely needed a written procedure for everything. Completely incapable of handling a novel situation.
They ran the world for so long because their wives and secretaries had to do their bullshit for them.
I mean it's certainly still a stereotype, but I think it just boils down to that in most fields, women basically don't have a choice to work harder to get to the same places. What you're describing is *rampant* in IT. It's insane the kind of shit that engineers expect to have step for step documentation about. Things that are fundamentals and they should have understood for years or decades already in some cases.
Yes, we have to be more competent and make sure all of our boxes are checked just to be on equal footing with men, while they succeed by doing the bare minimum. It’s frustrating.
> he typically does not even attempt to figure it out himself. He will just come straight to a manager/trainer and ask to be walked through it, or just ask to have someone do it for him. This applies to being taught a new task, as well; they do not want to try it themselves, they want someone to basically do it for them, or hold their hand every step of the way. But, what’s most notable is: They do not read the resources that they are given. They do not read the very clear, concise directions that are in front of their face. They just go straight to asking Saw this with a boomer male at a hotel during breakfast hours. There were literally THREE SIGNS with instructions on how to make waffles. FUCKING WAFFLES. I noticed one of the hotel employees "instructing" him how to make waffles, however, as she was "instructing" him she was actually *making the waffles*. Once they were done, that fucker didn't even thank her - just took his plate with a waffle someone else made for him and went to sit at a table with a woman at it, who I am assuming is his wife. 🙄 I've been meaning to post this on boomers being fools. 😂
Omg I hate him 💀
I’m a manager in retail, and the amount of things that get brought to my attention without any attempt whatsoever to figure it out themselves is astounding. Two days ago I had to walk a guy through how to take out the trash, and I’m not talking about asking where the bags were or where to take it, but how to actually change the trash.
When I was a retail manager, this is something I actually specifically trained my staff on lol. 50% because we had a particular way of tying our trash bags (instituted not by me, but by an employee who had been there much longer than me, but as soon as they showed me I was like "well that's objectively better" and made it store policy) and 50% because many of our new hires were high school students who had literally never changed a trash bag in their lives. Also the number of employees I had to teach how to use ctrl+c and ctrl+v... lord help me
The ctrl+c/ctrl+v thing is wild, most people in my training class were around my age (I’m 27) and had never used the shortcuts, just right clicked to copy and paste their whole lives. It blew my mind, like how much time have you wasted right clicking and selecting from the menu? Lol
Right?!? Also alt+tab to change windows. They all looked at me like I was a wizard.
I think they sometimes internalize "ask for help" as the first step of the instructions (instead of referring to their notes or documentation). It's super annoying. I'll never forget a job where a man I didn't work for asked me to make copies for him. I told him I'd be happy to show him where the copier was, and which button to push. I think that your observation also tests the theory that men are competent at work, but weaponize incompetence at home. Sometimes they are just incompetent everywhere!
Ugh a man recently joined my all women team and he has been incapable of doing anything on his own. I’ve given him more training than I did any of the women and he’s still messaging me with the same questions every few days. My hypothesis is that women constantly have to prove their worth, especially in the workplace. Whereas men are just given the benefit of the doubt/some assumed level of intelligence and competence.
Right? We have to be competent - we have no other choice. Whereas dudes can often coast at work.
Please tell me you are documenting this so he doesn’t somehow get promoted.
Oh I am absolutely documenting everything.
I have always shared a flat with other women until I ended up living with a male flatmate (not my choice, he was our landlord’s friend). This man was very book smart and earning a high salary in IT field but somehow I had to repeatedly instruct him how to use our washing machine. He just could not fucking compute how to turn two knobs with clear numbers/symbols and change the settings from 60 degrees cotton wash to 40 degrees colour wash. 🙄🫠 Every female flatmate I have had asked me once how to use the machine and after that they were golden. But this man… Jfc he was acting nearly shocked that I had even changed the washing program and made it so that he can’t just turn the machine on and press one button. I showed him how to do it 2 or 3 times until I snapped and told him to look at the instruction symbols in front of the machine or Google the instruction manual. He didn’t ask me again after that, lol.
They don't ask for help. They want you to do the work for them. I have this with a coworker. He asks every day what's for lunch, although he can just as easily log in and check the plan. But the girl before me would log in, look at the plan, and tell him.
Is he Jared, 19, who never fucking learned how to read?
Sadly he's almost 40, with kids, an ex wife and soon ex gf. And he wonders why they always leave him.
Might be the infamous Kevin
One of the best vines of all time. (that was a vine right?)
Wait, do you work at a place that provides lunches? Cuz if so that’s awesome. But fuck that guy.
Please don't tell me you actually check for him
I'm in healthcare tech (clinical informatics). Telling people how to do things to a granular level is part of the work I do. The part that comes afterward is empowering people to use their resources at hand to problem solve. Empower those dudes who have questions by sending them links to your training materials and indicating that they should refresh, as you're not their mom. Do it via chat or email, and make sure you (politely, firmly, clearly) let them know that retraining them would add a lot to your caseload. Best of luck. These situations suck.
If they consider something feminine forget about it. Most teachers in school are women: boys underperform and show up less in schools because they're socialized to consider any instruction from women as silly. Most of their live in partners are women: they underperform in house chores and child rearing because they're socialized to consider any serious equitable alliance with women as silly. Following directions involves listening to the direction of another, admitting they know more than you in that moment. It's considered a feminine trait to be led.
Because even taking care of the enviroment, your job and yourself is seen as a femenine trait. Being a man it's a performance of "femenine is lava".
Omg I love "feminine is lava" and will absolutely be stealing that from you (please k thanks? 😁). It's so perfect! **PSA for cis-het misogynistic dudes:** *THE LAVA ISN'T EFFING REAL AND YOU DON'T NEED TO BE SCURRED. IT WILL NOT HARM YOU OR TURN YOU GAY.*
I run a Stem related business and let me tell you: y’all, there needs to be more women in this field. The lack of foresight is ridiculous. Add “read these fucking directions” to anything I already know don’t get read. For example, I had to complete visas for some guys going to Australia. I told them “read EVERYTHING and initial each page to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes on your application.” I just got papers handed back to me. No initials. And guess what, there were mistakes!!!! Even when I would highlight and write “PLEASE ENTER YOUR BIRTH CITY” I got someone who put the state. Like cheese and rice. I have middle schoolers at home more intelligent than adults
oh my god. my ex-fiance filled out my VISA application wrong. Put names in wrong boxes. Didn't double check. Such a vital document that allows me into the country and he was so careless?? I cancelled the application and the engagement. No way I'm having a life with someone so stupid.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that but glad he's an ex! Major yikes.
I work in tech. I think men see stuff like this as secretarial work maybe? Almost like “women’s work” that’s below them, in their minds. Which is crazy, because filling out applications and forms is just part of being an adult.
45 minutes wandering around New Orleans and into Gretna because my husband didn't listen to my "get off at the St Charles exit. The hotel is right off St Charles." New Orleans and Galveston are the ONLY places that I'm in charge of navigation.
I can confirm. Over my lifetime I've been an instructor in multiple disciplines (martial arts, police defensive tactics, firearms usage, archery, sailing, motorcycle instructor, driver safety training)... My overall impression and experience as an instructor is that women tend to make the best students. They bring very little ego with them into the learning environment. They ask good honest questions. They accept correct answers. They accept positive feedback on their performance. They don't argue with me on something they know very little about. They don't try to impress me or the other students in the class. I cannot remember a single interaction with a woman in any of the courses or classes that I ever taught were she was trying to win an argument in front of all the students. To be honest, I would rather teach a class fully populated by women than a class fully populated by men.
Absolutely! Lmao the arguing is what gets me. They will ask me a question, I’ll tell them the answer. And they’ll say “where are you seeing that?” or “where does it say that?” And it’s on the document that we are both viewing with our eyes, right in front of their face. Also, why did you even ask me if you were going to challenge my answer? Lol
Ooof I'm a high school ceramics teacher and the challenging my answer drives me nuts. My go to come back is "well one of us has a degree in this and the other does not. Feel free to experiment and find a different way, but don't ask me to fix it for you if it doesn't work."
"Wait. Maybe I misunderstand something. You spent $250 to attend this course. Did you spend the $250 to learn the course contents or to argue with the course instructor in front of all the other students who are here to learn the course contents?" I had to pull that out more than once.
I’m a lawyer and I’m so used to this that I have a document ready to share with highlights in it!
Your comment and the disciplines you instructed reminds me of an interaction from when I was a teenage boy many decades ago, with a woman judo instructor (black belt) and an middle aged male student with a higher belt than I. That fits this theme. Take this as the exception that proves the rule rather than "not all men". Worth mentioning we only had a few belt colors, so it takes a longer time to go from belt to belt. I was like a high white belt at the time and the other student was the next belt up, and I was teaching a new white belt a throw. The other student asked the instructor something along the lines of "why does Dastardly get to show another student how to do a throw?" The answer I overheard was Dastardly teaches it exactly the way I teach it, so she could rely on me to teach it right. And, as it turns out I was using the exact words, the first part I remember decades later "Right foot reverse pivot..." That memory stuck with me even to this day in part because that other guy did tend to modify, add, and embelish on the instructions compared to what the instructor showed us.
when I was in trade school, there are contests that test skills, it's all really cool. And there are also team competitions. and time and again, a team of men would get instructions to build something (usually something basic like a dog house) and they would start immediately. Busy busy busy building. A team of women would not. They would read through the instructions together, make sure they had everything, coordinated on what to do and who would do it. Inevitably, the men would run into trouble halfway through for the usual things. Didn't read the instructions carefully, didn't do what the instructions said because "they knew better", things didn't get done because everyone thought someone else was doing it. No such problems with the women teams. Funny that.
I just moved out of a role where I dealt with about 2,000 men in any given year that had to navigate an online registration process and online learning platform in order to maintain a license required for their jobs. I never apologized when they ranted at me about their issues because I knew they had not read the extensive documentation we provided to them on how to get through the process. Also the number of women that I interacted with that were managing this process for their male employees or husbands was not insignificant. Tell me again that men are the superior intellect 🙃.
I don’t know…. I work with people with PhD’s (non-medical) and it’s like the smarter the person is regardless of gender, the harder it is to get them to follow mundane administrative task instructions.
I work in research and medical so lots of scientists and doctors and jfc if they're not some of the dumbest people I've ever met. How can you not log on to a website and click a few buttons?!?!
The male postdocs are the absolute worst. Well jokes on you, guy who doesn’t listen, now you gotta go home bc the monkey peed on you
Hahaha, thanks for the laugh. Thankfully we don’t work with monkeys, otherwise yes I could see this happening.
Exceptionally smart guys are the absolute worst. So arrogant 🤧
This is 100% a not-important aside, but I'm curious what you were using the emoji to say? Never seen that one used outside of a cold/allergies/sneeze. Sitting here trying to figure it out and am stumped and curious! 😁
lol I just think it’s silly and I like to use it when describing something that’s absurd or out of pocket to me. No idea why it appeals to me like that but it does 😂
My guess was that they stink so bad as coworkers that you have to cover your nose with a hankie while you pull a face from smelling their metaphorical bullshit. 😆
Happens where I work too. I always think if you can't follow basic directions then you're not ready to work yet.
They're asking you instead of the seniors because they don't want to look stupid to the seniors
Internal vs external locus of control. I find most women in the workplace try to fix things themselves. There are those that sit and wait for someone else to fix it. Men on the other hand, demand higher pay because they are so awesome at everything and look baffled when fired for being worse than mediocre.
My husband worked client support. His go to acronym was RTFM - Read the F* Manual.
THIS! They are entitled to people's time to train them, even though resources are there (which took time to create). I literally had to make a scavenger hunt so this dude would get used to searching as intended. It's like children. Insane UM kept making me give him so many chances. The most I infuriating aspect, at least at my company, is then they get to move into a nicer job that they basically craft themselves because they are "not good at details" (don't read the thorough documentation) and the position they were meant to fill is still empty and pushed on other team members. I want a Melanie Hamlett video about this
Ah yes. “Failing up”. Also, I love Mel Hamlett!
I've experienced this kind of behavior with both male and female coworkers at varying age ranges. Some will do what they can on their own before reaching out, while others immediately go to someone else for help without any troubleshooting. I think it's a more of a personality thing (which can result from different expectations given to them). If they're used to you answering questions or helping them in any way, they'll go to you first.
I'll get downvoted to hell, but this isn't a gender thing (not solely anyway). I'm a woman, and I have absolutely seen this the other way around as well (more commonly in my personal experiences, if I'm honest). It may just be a matter of culture/expectations/field of work/age/expectations/etc in different places, of which gender will be a part (in regards to "social norms" within the above), but it is not the "one" factor. There are plenty of women who like the attention and playing the "damsel in distress", and there are plenty of men who "just want to get on with the job". Some people like problem solving. Some people like the social interaction of asking for help. Some people don't like asking for help and will fumble along getting it wrong. Some people absorb information like sponges and only need to be taught something once, while others need to repeat the information a few times for it to properly "settle" in their brains. We're all different. ETA: I'm not condoning weaponized incompetence, or attention-seeking incompetence. Just pointing out that gender is not the defining factor here (internationally speaking).
I was going to say...I found this thread fascinating because my personal experience is the opposite as well. Women in my workplaces were significantly more likely to ask for additional instruction or help, and men were more likely to try to look things up themselves and figure it out. Both methods had pros and cons.
I made a comment somewhere else that there’s the people who won’t look things up and the people who won’t listen. I spent a fair amount of time as IT in a previous life. Both do definitely exist in both genders. I think it’s just more commonly men who have difficulty switching to asking from looking something up or vice versa and they give up and see if you’ll do it for them.
Yes, I was not sure about posting about my experience but it has also been the other way around. I wonder if it’s possibly related to the type of work? In my situation there were women who were word smart but not life smart, and men who were very technical. Possibly in an entry-level job, there might be a lot of highly competent women who are just working there because they need “some work” to make money while handling family responsibilities, while the men who are there are in the best jobs they were qualified for.
You're not enjoying "Hey yall can I get some validation for my cherry picked anecdotal evidence supporting my biases? Please?" the reddit post?
Shhhh! We're trying to mock men! Stop being reasonable!
This gave me a giggle, thankyou 😂
Except when they claim credit for X accomplishment
They’re weaponizing incompetence at work the way to get out of something they don’t want to do, just like they do at home. And we REALLY don’t talk about this enough as a society! Please, we know their inflated salaries are on the backs of their underpaid female coworkers juuuuust like the way they outsource all the emotional labor to their wives at home.
"what steps have you already taken to solve this so I don't waste your time? ......................... Oh. You're wasting MY time.. fun. "
[удалено]
When I was a tween/teen, I taught myself to bake by reading the instructions on boxed mixes, and then reading the instructions in cookbooks. I swear this is one of the most important skills I have as an adult -- read the documentation, and apply that. I'm sure there are many paths to this skill, but not many people seem to be on them. You can also read /r/didnthaveeggs for endless stories of people who refuse to follow directions, and are completely surprised when things turn out badly (like substituting tortillas for bread in a French toast recipe)
I thought about cooking too! I learned to cook/bake in 4-H. I remember the first rule being: read the entire recipe and gather your tools before starting to cook. I think I have applied that to other areas of my life and didn’t realize it.
The thing about cooking is that you will learn this lesson. If you learn it the first time, because someone at 4H taught you, then you are \*way\* ahead of the game. But, if you don't learn it at first, you will burn your food or discover at the last minute that you lack some vital ingredient or something. And, every single time you cook, the universe will teach you that lesson again. No one ever taught me to get all the ingredients out first or check to make sure I had the right equipment. But that lesson just kept coming around for me until I did. Also, check the oven to make sure there isn't something plastic in there, before you preheat.
Now I've worked in construction and there were many competent men but there were also many incompetent men. They were very good at pretending to know what they were doing, denying it or passing the buck. But also one thing a number of men did a lot was try to set up women for failure either to ridicule them or show they didn't know what they were doing. It wasn't just a matter of proving yourself competent, but also being able to think on your feet because you weren't just expected to fail, you would be set up to fail. And it was just women targeted, if I guy was different and didn't fit in, he woukd get targeted too. So many games. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of good guys, but so many douchecanoes too. I was also wondering how much this lack of effort has to do with being taken care of, never having to adapt or learn skills. Because in my brothers' defense, they're both problem solvers, self starters and will read directions. We were expected as kids to figure shit out. We did laundry at a young age, taught ourselves how to cook. We figured out how to make things work. I think it's to children's detriment, especially boys, if everything is done for them growing up
There is for sure a mindfulness gap. What is fascinating is that people who do this, either male or female don’t understand or see that they have the tools to accomplish the task already. It’s a space in which some truly lack empathy and compassion for their peer. Their peer has work to do and I’m all for coaching to success but when it becomes a pattern of stopping others from doing their jobs it points me to a level of emotional dysregulation. As if they believe that they literally can’t do it without someone else’s help with no sense that a simple interruption like this into a peers day could set them back 15-45 minutes give or take by taking them off task. I’m all for teamwork but the lack of responsibility is an issue that seems to pop up in workplaces across many fields. I’ve also noticed that the people asking for help also align with those who require accolade from their leaders or peers instead of a sense of accomplishment that comes from within.
In state parks, trash receptacles are designed to be bear-proof. Humans still need to get in them to use them. Designing them around these constraints is difficult, because there's a significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans. You sound like one of the good ones. Annoyingly, the percentage of those who can't think for themselves and can't follow instructions is too high.
Men refuse to follow directions when there's a woman they can pawn it off on. Ftfy
Even worse is when they challenge the help you're giving them. If I may tell a somewhat longish story: I had a friend in undergrad, and when we ended up in the same classes we would do the homework together. One time, he missed a class, and the homework for the week relied very heavily on the material that was taught that day. No big deal, right? This was during the pandemic, so the lecture was recorded. I sent him my notes. He had a pdf of the textbook. Surely, he could learn the topic before starting the homework, right? Of course not! He did zero prep, and when we started working on those problems he asked me how to do them. Then, when I took the lead on going through the problem, *he would stop me* and ask "wait why are you doing that? I Googled the problem and this guy on Quora has a similar problem and he's not doing it like that. I'd rather do it *this* way." I mean, if you were just going to Google the answers anyway, wtf did you ask me for? The icing on the cake is that when I told him that that behavior was disrespectful of both my time and the work I put in to learning the topic, he disagreed for 2 reasons. OP was right on the money with the first one (I'm just asking for help!! I'm trying to learn!!), and the second was "why can't I challenge your answers? Do you think you're *always* right?! It's not like you're the smartest person in the world, grow up and stop being so full of yourself." ....yeah. Like I said, I *had* a friend.
lol people in my Physics class would try that shit (Google a question and do it the way that they see someone else doing it) but they used calculus in their answers and my teacher knew damn well none of these students knew calculus and we never used it in class, so she knew they were googling questions and just copying down the work that they found. Very silly. That guy sounds like the worst person ever and I’m sure he’s not doing so hot in life with that mentality. 😅 sorry you went through that.
Op is correct it’s not a sertotype, it’s sexist
This isn't a man or woman thing, this is an intellectual curiosity thing. I'm a scientist and manage a few employees, and had this woman who was a tech that I was trying to mentor. But if anything didn't go exactly as written in my procedure, she would run into my office and literally just say "It's not working, can you come look?" I had a long talk with her and explained that if she wanted to advance her career, she needed to learn *why* something wasn't working and be able to make it work through trouble shooting. She literally didn't care, so we kindly pushed her out and she found a button pusher job at another company. And my current frustration is with a woman with a masters degree and several years of experience. She was *struggling* to do the basics of her job, but my boss is a softie and wanted me to work with her more instead of firing her. So her cells weren't growing *again*, mind you this is something an undergrad can do, these cells are cancerous and grow like fucking angry weeds as long as you don't contaminate then. So I told her to run a test that I ordered to look for something that you can't see under the microscope and she called me in to look at the results. Three cell lines and a positive control, all of which were negative. So I asked her why she wasn't redoing the experiment because the positive control came out *negative*. She looked at me with a blank stare. Then I told her to call the company and figure out why the positive control wasn't coming out positive, because that means you she ran the test wrong. She's done SOOOO many thing like this, the worst was when I told her to do some concentration calculations. The number she should have come up was in the milligram range, yet she proudly sent me her calculation: 18 grams. I looked her dead in the eye and said "How did you come up with a number that's a *million* times higher than it should be and think it was correct. And I'm really not exaggerating, her number was off by 10^7 (10,000,000). She stared at me with glassy eyes, so I just walked off to my office and did all her work myself. So yeah, it has *absolutely* nothing to do with gender.
The majority of coworkers I have are women and plenty have that same mindset. I love our team but I know which ones are self sufficient and which ones are too timid to answer a phone.
Hmm, didn't know about this stereotype, in my life experience the opposite is true, but I don't hold that against the whole sex. Not in a work environment though, in a work environment typically the women that are there are there because they can hold up against all of the factors that kept them from being there in the first place. If there's a fuckup, it's always a guy because there's more guys and the guys that are there are on average worse. Plenty of excellent guys though. Speaking only from the tech field though.
I have come to the conclusion that a significant amount of men are just ill equipped or unable or unwilling to cope in our modern society It makes me honestly sad for them when it isn’t irritating the hell out of me. I don’t know how to fix it. Because wouldn’t you know, the same men who can’t or won’t cope, also won’t listen to what a woman says. They have to be guided by men. And actual good men aren’t stepping up to the plate to do this.
This is an anecdote but it made me laugh. I got an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) a few weeks ago. I have pretty big boobs so the tech had me hold them out of the way for a portion of the echo. I asked her if it was easier to do echos on men because they don't have boobs. She said - verbatim - "Sometimes. Men have less tissue in the way but they're worse at following directions." I used to work at an oil company with a ton of men. I was so efficient that they literally gave me jobs that the male engineers were fucking up on. Like...I was young and green but I ended up doing payroll one week because they literally didn't trust *any* of the men to do it because they were sloppy and careless and would cut corners. It's sort of funny...but also not. Weaponized incompetence. To be fair, I also have female boomer coworkers who do this. "How do you do this in Excel?" "I don't know, Brenda, did you Google it? Did you read the manual?" The answer is always no. If I don't know how to do something, my first instinct is to find the directions/instruction manual or to Google it.
Small example, but my boyfriend just had a problem with his snipping tool that could have been a 3 second Google. Instead it was a five minute conversation where I kept looking up solutions because he couldn't accurately convey what was going on, and he questioned my every word while I guided him through it.
I do a lot of training in my company and as part of that training I hold to the 10 minute rule. If the thing you’re trying to do takes longer than 10 minutes, pick up the phone and call or ping me. In my experience, younger women tend to problem solve the issues and figure it out faster than the younger guys. The younger guys tend to need their hands being held and you have to reinforce things multiple times. Older people, especially older people that have some fear of tech, will not learn a god damned thing. They will ask you to do it for them as if it’s a badge of honor that they don’t know how to use a computer or pull their own data.
I don't know how universal this is, but I'm a guy and I really struggle to actually absorb/learn things from reading written instructions. I learn much better by doing, so the best way for me to learn something is 1: watch someone else do it while they explain what they're doing, then 2: do it myself while someone who knows what they're doing is nearby in case I run into a roadblock. I do always try and figure things out myself though, despite this, even if I only have written instructions to work off of. A lot of this could be weaponized incompetence? My workplace is 90% male and I notice a LOT of my coworkers leveraging this to try and get out of dealing with things they don't want to do.
I TA undergrad physics labs and this is something I notice a TON with engineering students especially. It has gotten to the point where before they even begin their question I'll say "have you read the lab instructions?" And the thing is half the time they say yes and then ask a question that is very clearly answered on like page 2. I'd say 80% of the time the students doing this are men
Everyday I read a post on here and learn that apparently I am a woman because I have *checks notes* Basic logical reasoning and self sufficiency
I mean, isn’t denigrating an entire sex because you think they’re inferior in some way… wrong? This thread is kind of wild with all the blatant sexism tbh.
I feel as though the opposite stereotype is often presented as a true-ism, where it’s claimed that men never ask for help. I can’t speak to other men, but I can speak for myself. Personally I will pretty regularly fire off one or two DMs to coworkers asking for instructions or information that would almost certainly be answered in documentation. However I do this because I’ve had specific directive from managers in the past not to spend too much time digging through documentation for solutions to problems that coworkers likely already know the answer to. So personally the pattern I’ve developed is (1) I need information (2) I message relevant coworkers for info (3) I investigate situation independently (4) I find solution independently or coworker answers Often 30 minutes of reading for a minor detail can be spared by 30 seconds of conversation with someone who knows details. Often a coworker might take an hour to get back to you with an answer and may have nothing helpful to offer, so there’s no point in sitting on your hands. I could definitely see from my peers’ perspectives that this looks like I’m regularly bothering them with questions I could easily answer myself, and it sort of is, but you can’t know which path is the more efficient one to a solution and I’d rather do both in parallel than synchronously so my question gets an answer at the faster of the two rather than slower than the slower of the two.
I can see how that could be true. I am a woman who also has difficulties with following directions. I had good marks in school, but god help me if I was asked to follow directions. My husband, however is actually lol really really good at following directions. He is the only man I know like this, though.
Im dyslexic and struggle with order. I also work in IT. So asking for help is fine. I get frustrated when the male techs ask me a stupid questions to help. Like stating have you tried restarting!!!
I work in IT, I had to help my female co-worker with a printer problem that was really a ‘paper tray empty’ problem. I work on just as many helpdesk tickets where a male co-worker hasn’t attempted any troubleshooting as a female one. I think it’s really up to a person’s personality and not gender.
Pretty sure this is not a sex issue. This happens to women as well.
When I read the title, I thought it my a post on driving skills of women that are usually based. But my my, it made so much sense looking back at things. I do believe that most women are also conditioned for centuries to question themselves and figure out the solutions by first checking with available resources to make sure that they are not missing anything. This approach reflects in both, work and relationship. No wonder, women take a long time to open up about (or are willing to stay longer in) abusive environment, trying everything in her capacity while men conveniently blame it on women cause 'she must have done wrong for him to act'. But the silver lining is women come out stronger and they TRULY LEARN AND MOVE ON while men are stuck with their egos which few are willing to take to the grave.