How to handle Dumb and Dumber

A friend asked; what do I do with staffs that are just too dumb to be any good. To be honest, all the training in the world is not going to change him/her because "dumbness" is an attitude; not a skill deficiency.

It's like a sense of initiative or curiosity, it is not a condition or an affliction, but a state of mind. So a Dark Manager will take one of the following options

a) Assign him to the most mind numbing task possible, as typically folks at the shallow end of the IQ spectrum have a high threshold for boredom.
b) Give him a glorious commendation to be transferred to another department.

Either way, out of sight, out of mind.

Seriously though, dark managers love dumb resources because it's the few people in the world that can withstand the dark manager's ingenuity (note: sarcasm).

When you work with stupid people

The hinges to my notebook starts giving way and I mistakenly approached the peons instead of working my way down from the department head. So this is what I got

"According to our record, your notebook will be reaching its leasing maturity period in less than 3 months from now. So, if the current one still can be stretched for this period of time, we will be very grateful for your understanding. Should the notebook fails completely, then we will assist to find you a replacement unit, though it may be a challenge as we do not keep any spares"

Try replacing that email with a doctor patient scenario:-

“I am sorry, but your pacemaker is up for renewal only in 3 months time, we know its faulty now; but hopefully it will last that long… but if it kaputs on you we will try to find a replacement pacemaker… and I hope you understand that it’s really hard to find a replacement when it breakdown too, cause we don’t keep spares… ”

Which brings to mind Carol:-

Scriptonomatophobia

I saw this in one of those answers.com websites asking whether there's a medical name for the fear of signing one's name.

"Scriptophobia" is fear of writing in public. "Nomatophobia" is fear of names.

So perhaps Scriptonomatophobia is the fear of signing one's name on a document that can be traced to you when the shit hits the fan.

What they should have mentioned is that Dark Managers carry this sickness like a recessive gene. The more dark managers they are in the company, the more Scriptonomatophobic managers take time off or work out an excuse to tai chi authorizations to a subordinate or to another department.