Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

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.)

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

2020 has taken a toll on everyone.

Perceptions are deceptive. I will await data.

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.

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.