
Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence? - giantg2
I&#x27;m not talking about lower level jobs, but in important areas. I&#x27;m noticing incompetence and complacency from people in positions which could very negatively impact lives. I&#x27;m seeing it more now than ever before.<p>For example, I&#x27;ve been trying to get medical records for 3 weeks and the office keeps: faxing the wrong number, faxing the wrong release forms, giving us incorrect status info, etc.<p>Another example is a legal matter I&#x27;m now involved with. The officer wrote the citation for the wrong statute (more serious), gave us incorrect information in how to request records, misspelled a name on the citation, and put the wrong time (by hours) on the citation. The court also gave us incorrect information on requesting records, gave us the wrong kind of subpeona and won&#x27;t correct it, and the staff doesn&#x27;t even know what an affidavit is.<p>We saw several doctors during an SVT event 48 hours after multiple simultaneous immunizations. They all said unequivocally that the events were unrelated, but could not produce data to support their opinion nor refute the thousands of arrhythmia events in VAERS data. (There&#x27;s no data to concretely prove or disprove, so it&#x27;s unknown). So now I have to submit ther VAERS report. Doctors like this will lead to under reporting, impacting studies on safety.
======
one2know
I've had a cop try to boost charges from non-injury careless driving to injury
careless driving. The ticket had a check-box for "injury" on it. The cop
underlined it instead of checking the box when the other driver was unharmed.
If confronted she would just say she meant to strike through. If I did nothing
and pleaded no-contest I would be getting myself into a massive injury
lawsuit. Sometimes incompetence is not incompetence.

~~~
giantg2
True, and it can be hard to tell sometimes. Sometimes they'll upgrade the
charge or write a false charge because many people just plead guilty so they
can pay the fine and get on with their lives. I'm glad you paid attention.

My wife once picked up an old traffic cone that had been abandoned in a ditch
for more than 30 days. An officer wrote her a citation and she just plead
guilty and mailed the fine in. She didn't realize it was for a misdemeanor
when the officer was supposed to write it for a summary offense. She kept
getting denied when applying for jobs and found out that was the reason. She
had to get a lawyer to get it correct - at her expense. (This was long before
we met)

A local police department was spreading similar misinformation on Facebook
about something being a misdemeanor when it should have been a summary
offense. I ended up having to get the DA involved to set them straight so they
wouldn't ruin someone else's life.

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
>Sometimes they'll upgrade the charge or write a false charge because many
people just plead guilty

How do you know that, and where do you live that the police file charges?
That's typically the job of a prosecutor.

>A local police department was spreading similar misinformation on Facebook
about something being a misdemeanor when it should have been a summary
offense. I ended up having to get the DA involved to set them straight so they
wouldn't ruin someone else's life.

Would you provide more information about the local police department and the
"something?"

And how would it ruin someone's life if they thought that 'something' carried
greater consequences than it actually did?

For example, if the police refer to "jaywalking" as "felony jaywalking," that
doesn't actually make it a felony, nor does it mean that if someone jaywalks
that they would have a felony on their record.

No?

~~~
giantg2
Many lesser offenses are handled via a summary trial at the local Magistrate
in Pennsylvania. The officer is the one representing the state/prosecution in
those instances. The DA will typically not get involved (currently going
through this). Most of the time I believe it is incompetence or
complacency/laziness that would be the cause for incorrect charges. But I have
heard of cops screwing someone over by writing the wrong thing (I have friend
who are cops and tell stories).

The township police posted info stating that the new 'purple paint' law makes
trespassing (defiant) an M3 when a property is posted with purple paint. In
reality it only adds purple paint as an alternative to using a sign and
carries the same grading as signs (summary offense). If they issue a citation
under the wrong grading and someone just pleads guilty to pay the fine, then
that misdemeanor can ruin their life by preventing them from passing
background checks required by most 'good' jobs and would require expensive
legal representation to correct it (see my previous comment on my wife's
situation).

The jaywalking example isn't really the same since there is no felony grading
of jaywalking. If you look at the prior example of trespassing, that could be
graded as S, M3, or M1 depending on the elements of the offense. If the
officer is complacent, lazy, incompetent, or malicious, then they might write
your citation for the M3 grading even if you didn't meet the definition - you
would have to be told in-person to leave and refuse to leave for it to be an
M3.

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
Thank you for the detailed explanation. That was helpful and clear.

------
incompetentthrw
I worry often that my perception of this is biased because I'm young and "this
has always happened" but I fully agree with you, and it's across the spectrum
of importance.

Hire a contractor to power wash part of a house, and they simply _did not do
half the work._ Not a matter of a half-assed job, simply was not even done.
When called back, they proceeded to skimp in almost the same way, except when
confronted over there being literal clumps of dirt still on sections they did
claimed "oh I guess it just came off easier a second time."

What's absurd is like you I've experienced it in life-threatening fields as
well. I'm currently contesting a rather pricy medical bill as a result of a
surgery, that should be covered, when I call my insurance provider they claim
should be covered, but then I... keep getting bills for. Even calling the
university sending the bills, they claim it should be covered, claim they put
a "note on my account" but then the bills keep coming. I've spent 12+ man
hours being fed BS by a string of companies who have shown no real ability to
actually rectify a glaring, financially critical issue.

It's just crazy to me how pervasive it is, even for well-reputed companies. I
feel like if I was this bad at my job I'd be fired in an instant, but then I
see managers in my stack whom engineers have _abysmally_ low reputations of
(have had HR reports for bullying, have pushed individuals out of the company,
regularly are caught in lies/misdirection) get continual promotions and
praise.

There really seems to be two classes of accountability in this world, and for
those jobs where there really isn't any, I get the sense it's become a race to
the bottom. (Look in govt. as well. It's basically dogma that campaign
promises are full-of-shit, but we continually accept them at face
value/there's no recompense when they're inevitably not met.)

~~~
giantg2
"I feel like if I was this bad at my job I'd be fired in an instant..."

Yes! I look at these other jobs and think how great it would be to work in a
position that had no accountability.

~~~
rdtwo
I think that’s probably impostor syndrome working. My bet is that a lot of
people could be significantly worse at their jobs without the system detecting
it

~~~
giantg2
True. Possibly observation bias too - I only observed an issue, but I could be
the only one out of a hundred or thousand with a problem.

------
omeysalvi
I think it is due to the change in the nature of employment while human beings
have remained the same. In the modern world, to live a semblance of a normal
lifestyle, you have to commit to a job or labour that requires putting in
thought and effort. 100 years ago, the white collar jobs only went to those
who chose education and hard work and worked towards it because it was an
objectively better lifestlye than what most people were doing. People were
motivated to change their circumstances because the difference between a bad
job and good job on the lifestyle was massive. So people were motivated were
to keep those jobs and do good at them. Nowadays, a lot of people will
sleepwalk through life and end up in a situation that they can't handle on a
daily basis. There is a feeling of people not really wanting to be here -
wherever they are in life. The mind is distracted and focused on petty things
like personal conflicts and day to day inconveniences. It is not really their
fault. It is just how the time is. The people who for centuries would have
gotten along fine with manual labour are suddenly forced into jobs that
require continuous mental thought all during the day. Most people can't handle
it or they don't want to and you can't really blame them.

------
ksec
Well it is basically the pandemic, which put stress on lots of different
level. Both within and outside of their Job.

And the other factor in the modern era is that everyone is overworked and / or
underpaid. The motivation to do something properly is gone. I would not be
surprised those jobs you mentioned are now doing 2x the workload compare to 20
to 30 years ago while earning a quality of life ( Even Money over inflation
may not be a clear indicator ) that is lower than what it was 20 - 30 years
ago. Comparatively Speaking.

------
haeberli
I have been calling this "Haeberli's corollary" to the Third Law of
Thermodynamics - "globally, competence is not conserved" \- it's leaking out
of the universe, somehow...

------
beagle3
Part of it is automation. "Peopleware" has an episode about human-mediated
processes vs. machine-mediated processes that explains a lot of it:

In the past, whatever you needed done, was done through human action even if
they used machines. So there was a good chance that _somewhere_ along the way,
there would be _someone_ who'd notice and check/fix, or at least would be able
to help you when things go wrong.

But with increased automation, every mistake is amplified and carried to
completion much more efficiently -- and the humans you _can_ talk to are often
minimum wage people who are not very familiar and are not authorized to modify
anything about the processing stages. There are 1/100 or 1/1000 as many people
who can actually help you as there were 40 years ago -- and by that I mean
_actually_ help you, that is - fix wrong data, override automated processes,
etc; not just read from a script.

------
rshnotsecure
I would like to comment on this. My real name and also email I believe are in
my profile, as well as in a couple of past comments.

Incompetence is sometimes a brilliant intelligence and counterintelligence
strategy.

The old saying of "don't suspect malice when stupidity is possible" or
whatever was a favorite saying of Aldrich Ames. And of course that is what one
would say if they were doing what he did.

It's also a great recruitment strategy for spies. The CIA realized by the mid
70's that hey didn't have to ask ppl to defect, or to pass secrets, often they
would just say, "can you make sure that if this security concern ever gets
filed, you just just make sure it gets lost, or that you are really confused
and don't understand?"

Incompetence happened a great deal in the Soviet Union. It mentally killed
people to see it everyday. People had just given up on society and accepted a
corrupt incompetent way of life. Ultimately, incompetence, even if begun as a
malicious strategy, eventually inspires it in others, which is tragic.

~~~
dawidw
> Incompetence happened a great deal in the Soviet Union. It mentally killed
> people to see it everyday.

Wasn't it result of communism? At least that's my impression after reading
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago".

------
silveroriole
> which could very negatively impact lives.

Yeah, but the lives of people that the worker who actually produces the
citation/form/record/whatever will never see, doesn’t care about, and just
views as an annoyance who’s making them do something.

The bigger populations and communities get, and the more remotely everyone can
work, the less likely it is you’ll deal with someone who has any interest,
knowledge or fucks to give about you. I’m sure if these companies had to get
it right for the boss’s friend, they’d magically become competent.

------
d33lio
The seemingly innocuous mistakes of morons in society will always cause
immeasurable amounts of pain both through wasted time and anxiety.

I'm not even that smart, but heck I have a college degree and for me I had to
stop assuming others had the best of intentions and / or were as smart as I
was. When you just double check and clarify when appropriate - you can avoid
dumb pitfalls like this.

For instance, "Here's my bank acct number, can you confirm this is the number
you are submitting for the request?" or "thank you officer, I would like to
ensure we are on the same page, I understand you underlined this check box,
but I'd like to have a new slip without the underline".

Interacting with morons sucks, but if you put a bit of effort into these
things, in time you might avoid wasted time or anxiety.

~~~
justaguyhere
If there is one thing I have learned, it is this - most people don't care
about anything other than themselves. At least in part, it is not their fault
- they have their own crappy life to deal with, so why bother having good
intentions and care for others (work or otherwise)?

It is tolerable most of the time, except when it comes to powerful jobs like
cops/doctors/lawyers etc where even a small mistake can wreck someone's life.
I had a colleague whose lawyer made a mistake while filing paperwork. He lost
his visa and move back to his home country, all because a lawyer (well paid
one at that) couldn't bother to do simple paper work correctly. I don't know
if it was incompetence or _I don 't care attitude_, my colleague's life is
ruined either way.

~~~
giantg2
I agree.

I think in many cases the lawyers are overpaid. I'm doing all the legal leg
work for my wife - researching case law, scrutinizing statutes, combing
through code, placing calls, and talking to my LEO buddies (they think the
officer made a mistake).

------
fbotshkydgkifvj
I think it is more likely that the change is in you. It has been a stressful
year and you may be keeping score more than you did in the past. When things
are hard we try to find fault in others, which is a painfully easy thing to
do.

It might help to see these not as opportunities to be frustrated but as
opportunities to be gracious and forgiving. It’s like seeing money fall out of
a stranger’s pocket: it can be an opportunity to steal or an opportunity to
help.

~~~
giantg2
I don't think I've changed. I'm pretty forgiving. For example, I could have
the other person involved in the legal situation issued a $300 fine, but I'm
not reporting it. I also understand people make mistakes, which is why I
contacted to officer involved to give him the correct information and ask that
he make the correction to the citation. Instead he was complacent and said
even if it's wrong he won't change it and we have to go to court. I could file
a professional complaint against the officer, but I'm not.

So there's a lot of stuff I could do against people, but I'm not. I'm trying
to give people the benefit of doubt or correct their mistake, but they are
making it very difficult.

------
brudgers
None of this sounds any different from thirty years ago. And the interaction
with law enforcement sounds like high competency it’s just that high
competency doesn’t look like what you thought it did.

Generally I find greater competency on average. I just accept that a person
can be competent at doing something I don’t like.

~~~
giantg2
Why do you say the interaction with law enforcement shows competence? You mean
gaming the system to increase convictions/charges by essentially lying
(incorrect charges)?

~~~
brudgers
They are fucking with you. Competently. They are doing so on behalf of people
on the other side of the “who gets fucked with” line. You thought you were on
the other side of the line but it appears you were mistaken. Behaviors
premised on a belief law enforcement is incompetent won’t do much for a
defendant. Defendants are even further along the “who gets fucked with”
spectrum.

~~~
giantg2
I completely get that they can lie and do other tricks in the course of the
investigation (hence subpeona the investigation file). They are not supposed
to file false charges. The entire premise of our legal system is based on the
idea that two equal parties in a fair contest (court) will yield the truth.
Abusing the system (violating regulations) is a completely different level.

Actually, the behavior premised on incompetent law enforcement is the only way
to go. If you assume they are competent, then you would plead guilty because
there's no way to win. Cases are routinely thrown out over incompetent actions
by law enforcement. This is all a big waste if time and tax dollars when we
show up and show the judge that we don't meet the elements of the offense and
he dismisses the case.

I know what competent policing looks like. I have many friends who are
officers and I am state licensed/trained as a armed guard. My friends and the
dog warden have also said this is odd and that he wrote it up wrong. For the
record the citation was supposed to be for a dog being off leash and they
instead wrote it as a dangerous dog - a big screw up.

~~~
brudgers
_The entire premise of our legal system is based on the idea that two equal
parties in a fair contest_

One side decides who is an equal party. The other side is you.

~~~
giantg2
If the entire premise of our rule of law is being ignored, then one has no
reason to abide by it. Declare it tyranny and become a scofflaw. This
disenfranchised mentality is how empires crumble.

~~~
brudgers
The premise of common law is the _Magna Carta_. it was between the king and
_his_ nobles. Everyone wasn't a noble.

~~~
giantg2
Common law is a different thing. Common law is based on historical customs and
English Common law is different from American Common law. It can even vary by
state.

We aren't governed by the divine right of kings. Our system is based on
limited sovereignty and trial by "combat" (truth comes from a fair fight in
the courts). The Magna Carta is listed as the beginning of the evolution
towards limited sovereignty - it is not the premise on which the current court
system is based (it's that truth comes out during a fair fight).

------
notmyname9173
Wild speculation: Customer service, support, and other direct interactions are
difficult to scale. Large corporations tend to optimize direct-contact
positions for cost and speed over quality. This act of endlessly “optimizing
staff time” to control costs inevitably ends up with people rushing through
things in order to satisfy an unforgiving productivity algorithm.
Consolidation/competition displaces local businesses that solve the service
problem with higher-cost service offerings, leaving everyone with worse-off
except for the beneficial owners of these consolidated behemoths.

------
vb6sp6
I don't think it is incompetence. It seems more like laziness. Everyone is on
their phone or trying hard to get back to their phone and small mistakes are
adding up.

~~~
giantg2
I can see that. I probably should have included it.

I think the lazy part might be more prominent in low power positions. The
specific example I have of these positions of power (LEO, court officials,
healthcare) seem to let the power power go to their heads. In my opinion it
seems they let that feeling of mastery lead to incompetence. I do think
laziness is part of the equation that leads to that.

------
thorin
I've got a feeling when I was younger in the 80s/90s people stayed in the same
job for most of their career and had a huge hierarchy of people above them.
Processes were largely manual and paper based and so completely understood by
administrative staff in most business areas. Now most things are computerised
and dumbed down, no-one needs to understand them. Add to that outsourcing and
people moving quickly between low skilled jobs where is the incentive to care
deeply about these issues?

------
runjake
I don't know that its increased. I rather think that with the pandemic, and
WFH and everything else, weaknesses in the process -- and whole new processes
are being exposed.

\- People are being challenged

\- Situations are rapidly changing course, and people have to adapt quickly.

\- People are trying to do their jobs while worrying about their finances, or
how they're going to home school their kids, or daycare, or them or their
spouses losing their job.

It's fine, everyone will adapt to the new normal, whatever that ends up
looking like.

------
dyingkneepad
I am clearly much more incompetent at my job than I was in 2019. My
performance is much worse and this is very noticeable to my boss and anybody
who tries to pay attention.

Working from home is hard in my situation, and I have all the symptoms of
depression yet I'm not treating them.

I expect a huge part of the population to be in the same position as I am.

------
bjourne
No, I notice increased competence. So much I depend on the competence others
have which I myself don't. Everything from getting a haircut, to calibrating
the ventilation in my apartment, to politicians holding speeches.

~~~
justaguyhere
_politicians holding speeches_

Curious about this. I can count on one hand the politicians I truly
admire/respect, including the world leaders (among the ones I am familiar
with, and I am familiar with a few). Why do you think politicians are getting
better with speeches? All I see are useless, meaningless, confusing soup of
words that they blabber (with few exceptions)

~~~
giantg2
And even the ones typically highly regarded lie. See Obama's comment on the
wage gap from the state of the union a few years back. I doubt it was
incompetence, but probably a calculated lie.

~~~
giantg2
Why is this downvoted?

------
peruvian
2020 has taken a toll on everyone.

~~~
Karawebnetwork
This. A lot of people lost their routine. People who never experienced stress
and anxiety before are now bathing in it.

Maybe the stress is making them care less. "Why should I care about washing
this house when the world is falling apart?"

Some of them may care more. "If I make a mistake here, I'll get fired and
never find a job in 2020."

Either way, stress WILL increase the amount of mistakes done.

For example, this study saying that surgeons make up to 66% more mistakes
during stressful situations.
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181219191052.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181219191052.htm)

It's daily stress, they describe it as people talking, machines beeping, etc.

Now imagine the result if you replace this daily regular stress with a fear of
a pandemic, a fear of the economy crashing, a fear of the environmental
crisis, etc.

People are bound to make more mistakes.

------
austincheney
Perceptions are deceptive. I will await data.

~~~
giantg2
Perception of the data can be deceptive too (the process of turning data into
information).

