Step 6: Were entirely ready to remove all defective characters in our way.

Incompetence Anonymous (IA) Step 6 is often misquoted at traditional recovery meetings as a Freudian slip by nervous newcomers. AA’s Step 6, Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, is sandwiched between admitting the exact nature of our wrongs and asking our higher power to remove our shortcomings. In IA, however, Step 6 is preceded by criticisms from a condescending boss and foreshadows an office reorganisation without you in it.

As discussed in brown-nose nose-diving effect, incompetent bureaucrats and sociopathic bosses tend to hire less competent underlings or employees they can fully control. Unfortunately, if you do not fit their mold of minion, then you need to be dispatched. For them, an intervention is nothing more than removing a name from an organisation chart. If you have ever found yourself on the wrong side of a burnt bridge after an office restructuring, then you know exactly what I mean.

Speaking of constructive dismissal, let’s not confuse an incompetent supervisor with someone who is just being an arsehole. It is no secret that many incompetent bureaucrats suffer from the dual affliction of incompetence and arseholism. Arseholism, as you may be aware, is an extreme personality disorder associated with many incompetent bureaucrats. Anecdotal evidence suggests a correlation between incompetence and arseholism, but further study is required to determine the exact link. Suffice it to say, that where there is one, then the other is likely to surface.

If an incompetent arsehole suddenly becomes competent, then they may no longer be incompetent, but they are still an arsehole. Not to worry, IA saw that one coming. IA’s holistic approach to recovery developed a range of IA support groups, and Incompetents Arsehole Anonymous (IAA) was developed for this particular situation. IAA is proving popular with existing members working in the political arena and is expected to become the flagship program for IA.

To be honest, I must admit that I have worked for many competent bosses, and most of them did not suffer from arseholisn. I have been fortunate in that way. That said, the few arseholic bosses that I have worked for were also stellar candidates for IA. I guess it’s a chicken verses the egg scenario. I have met many accountants, for example, and most of them are a tad anal. Does becoming an accountant make one anal or do anal personalities gravitate towards careers in accounting?  Same thing about incompetence and arseholism.

My theory is that any incompetent hired under the brown-nose nose-diving effect is an arseholic in the making. That may be a moot point if you are sitting one rung below an incompetent arseholic on the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, the only way to survive this situation is to duck and cover. If you do not follow your supervisors every directive, then you may find yourself out of a job. There may be no “I” in team, but from their perspective, unless you do their exact bidding there is no “U” in team either. In corporate environments, they call that downsizing, in IA we call it brownsizing. Believe me; I have been there.

Dr. StrangeJob

Future columns will discuss my continued journey through the IA recovery process. Until then, feel free to view the inaugural IA meeting, learn about Incompetents Anonymous, read the Audacity Prayer and 12+1 Steps, or become familiar with IA’s additional support groups.

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Step 5: Admitted to senior management, to HR, and to all fellow employees the exact nature of their wrongs.

My Incompetence Anonymous (IA) recovery process is taking too dam long. The initial plan was to whip through two or three steps a week, declare myself cured, and start a speaking tour. Six months later and I am still working on Step 5 without a book deal in sight. There has to be a better way.

I am doing everything I am supposed to do, hell, I even took the geographical cure. For the uninitiated, a geographical cure involves moving to a new city, town, country, or hemisphere with the promise of a fresh start free of incompetence. In my case, I didn’t technically move but simply stopped travelling to work. By not going to work, I eliminated exposure to the clear majority of incompetence in my life.

I did, however, find completing the resentments inventory rather easy. I mean, how difficult is it to list all of the people, places, and things from your past that did not live up to your expectations or treat you as expected. Hell, I have been developing that list for years. I have always been ready to remove all defective characters standing in my way and can honestly say that I don’t hold resentments to any of those assholes I used to work for.

Keep in mind that Step 5 may be the last chance you get to impress your peers with all of the crazy stuff you did when you were an active incompetent. Agreeing to go to a few meetings may be worth the price of a free pass for all of that shit you got away with as a practicing incompetent. It’s like being assigned “special projects” status at work. Everyone knows you messed up, but your friends in power keep you on the payroll anyway.

Sure, it can be tough sharing a moral inventory with another human being, especially when they start crying after meticulously listing their deficiencies. I even had someone take a swing at me for telling them what their spouse was really up to on meeting nights. Apparently, their spouse fell for an initiation prank dealing with the need to give it away in order to keep it, but hey, I almost fell for that one myself.

Still, I need to find a more efficient way to finish up these steps. Perhaps I will take the advice of an AA friend who found themselves in a similar situation. They declared themselves agnostic and stated that any AA step concerning a higher power was not applicable to their individualized recovery and eliminated seven of AA’s twelve steps. I wonder how many IA steps I can eliminate if I declare myself competent?

Ok, perhaps, maybe, I could be missing the point of Step 5.  After all, we are not cured of incompetence. What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our competent condition. I will continue to keep coming back one gaffe at a time.

Dr. StrangeJob

Future columns will discuss my continued journey through the IA recovery process. Until then, feel free to view the inaugural IA meeting, learn about Incompetents Anonymous, read the Audacity Prayer and 12+1 Steps, or become familiar with IA’s additional support groups.

Find Dr. StrangeJob on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/drstrangejob
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Learn more about Dr. StrangeJob at www.drstrangejob.ca

Welcome to the first in a series of posts following my journey through the Incompetents Anonymous (IA) recovery process in my quest for competence, spirited enlightenment, and workplace sanity. Let’s start at the bottom.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over incompetence – that our hierarchy had become uncontrollable.

It is a truly spiritual moment when you realise that your work environment is beyond your control and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Congratulations, this is the start of your recovery. Once you take this step then your future path becomes clear. If you are being thrown out of town, then get in front and make it look like a parade in your honour.

I have hit IA rock bottom more than once and at least once in every organisation that I have worked. My most vivid plunge into the void of incompetence took place during an initial meeting with a new supervisor. Did you ever find yourself on the wrong side of a burnt bridge with a boss that obviously didn’t want you to be working for them?  Sometimes you just need to suck it up and move forward, but this time it was clear that my only path forward was out the door. That’s office politics for you, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. At least I was given three month’s notice, but it was perhaps overkill to make those three months the most demeaning of my entire work career.

Then there was the time the first words a new supervisor said to me were: “I bet you’re sorry you complained about me now.”  I wasn’t sorry that I complained about them, but I soon became very sorry that they were told that I complained about them.

How about the time I took a year leave to complete my doctorate and my dissertation advisor dropped me? I managed to find another advisor and complete my degree but was laid-off from my teaching position a week after my dissertation defense. The only thing worse than an academic out of touch with reality is an academic wannabe out of touch with reality.

OUCH! I was just talking to my IA sponsor, and they tell me that I obviously need more work on this step. Apparently, I should be focusing on personal recovery rather than blaming others. Something about there being no “I” in team and that pointing a finger at someone leaves three fingers pointing back at yourself.

OK, I admit it. There is no “I” in team, but you can find a “’me” and an “eat” in there if you look hard enough. True, if you point your finger at someone there are still three pointing back, but if you use your middle index finger pointed in an upward direction, then the message is more clearly received.

I think I must be cured because my sponsor just told me that I should go directly to Step 13.

Dr. StrangeJob

The Audacity Prayer: Grant me the authority to eliminate those that will not follow, the ability to terrorise those that remain, and the audacity not to care about the difference.

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Audacity Prayer: Grant me the authority to eliminate those that will not follow, the ability to terrorize those that remain, and the audacity not to care about the difference.

Hello, my name is Dr StrangeJob, a recovering incompetent and founding member of Incompetents Anonymous (IA). My recent defeat in a local mayoralty election forced me to hit rock bottom. I admit that I am powerless over incompetence and that my election campaign was unmanageable, but I have a selfish desire to overcome my incompetence in time for the 2020 municipal elections. Future columns will discuss my personal journey through the IA recovery process as I search for competence, spiritual enlightenment, and heavily sponsored campaign ads, but first, some background on IA.

IA is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from incompetence. The only requirement for IA membership is a desire to stop being incompetent.

The IA movement borrows heavily from the traditional 12 step recovery process, while taking into account the unique issues surrounding the recovery needs of incompetents. The Audacity Prayer, for example, is to Incompetents Anonymous what the Serenity Prayer is to Alcoholics Anonymous. The IA triangle also borrows from the traditional Alcoholics Anonymous triangle, but rather than emphasise AA’s three-part solution to addiction (unity, recovery, and service), the IA triangle reflects the three key personality traits most often associated with an incompetent’s mindset (denial, immunity, and self-service).

These unique characteristics of incompetents, as compared to addicts, inspired the IA movement:

1. Addicts must hit a personal “rock bottom” before authentic recovery can begin. For addicts, this bottom is often very traumatic and obvious. Incompetents tend to hold senior positions in a hierarchy and are often oblivious to the ills of their own incompetence. An oblivious incompetent is, oviously, a more difficult nut to crack.
2. Traditional recovery programs emphasise the anonymous aspect of the process. Incompetents are not anonymous to anyone other than themselves.
3. A functional addict can still be a competent worker, but the concept of a “functional incompetent” is an oxymoron.
4. Challenges inherent in dealing with incompetents has necessitated the inclusion of an additional step in the IA recovery process. The added step makes IA the word’s first 12 +1 step self-help recovery program.

Like an addict, a single incompetent can have a devastating effect on friends and family, not to mention a demoralising effect on an entire organisation. Fortunately, IA has developed its own family of support groups. Similar to Al-Anon, IA-Anon supports anyone whose life is affected by someone else’s incompetence. Ala-Tweet, not to be confused with Alateen, is an online version of IA-Anon designed for the younger tech savvy sufferer.

IA also envisioned the need for institutional and work related support groups. The adage that your workplace can “drive you to drink” receives its own support group in ACOI (Alcoholic Colleagues of Incompetents). Although there is apparent overlap, ACOI should not be confused with either ACA (ACoA) or ACOA. Lastly, IAA (Incompetent Arsehole Anonymous) addresses the dual infliction of incompetence combined with an extreme personality disorder associated with many of our senior IA members. IAA is proving popular with existing members working in the political arena and is expected to become the flagship program for IA.

Please join me in future columns as I struggle through the IA recovery process—one gaffe at a time.

 Twelve +1 Steps of Incompetents Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over incompetence – that our hierarchy had become uncontrollable.
2. Came to believe that senior management, thinking greater of themselves, could restore the hierarchy to complacency.
3. Made a directive that all minions turn their will and lives over to management care.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our minions.
5. Admitted to senior management, to HR, and to all fellow employees the exact nature of their wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to remove all defective characters in our way.
7. Condescendingly demanded minions to remove their inadequacies.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to downsize them all.
9. Make direct attacks on all who threaten us whenever possible, except when to do so could hurt us or our inner circle.
10. Continue to take personnel inventory and when they are wrong promptly admit it.
11. Sought through fear and intimidation to enforce our will on all minions, paying only for the knowledge necessary to increase personal power or the authority to carry that out.
12. Having had a superiority complex as a result of these steps, we continue to carry the message of inferiority to our minions and to practice these principles in all extramarital affairs.
13. If you have sincerely worked through the preceding 12 steps and still remain incompetent, then you are basically screwed. Your only recourse will be to follow the advice of Dr Wilbur Swain (Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) – “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”

Dr. StrangeJob

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