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What Happens When the Competent Opt Out?
Two Minds.com Charles Hugh Smith ^ | 6/4/2023 | Charles Smith

Posted on 06/09/2023 8:35:50 AM PDT by RobMorse

What happens with the competent retire, burn out or opt out? It's a question few bother to ask because the base assumption is that there is an essentially limitless pool of competent people who can be tapped or trained to replace those who retire, burn out or opt out, i.e. quit in favor of a lifestyle that doesn't require much in the way of income or stress.

(Excerpt) Read more at charleshughsmith.blogspot.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: competencehierarchy; searchstillworks
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Are you seeing this too? If you knew then what you know now, would you work for your boss or your company?
1 posted on 06/09/2023 8:35:50 AM PDT by RobMorse
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To: RobMorse

I think someone wrote a book along these lines, over half a century ago.


2 posted on 06/09/2023 8:40:36 AM PDT by absalom01 (You should do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, and you should never wish to do less.)
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To: RobMorse

what if the conservative consumer opts out?

cut the cable tv
do not buy national name brands(they fund the LEFTIST media)
buy only local/generic
same for restaurants
no national chains
only the local storefront locally owned restaurants

the public square app lists non-woke companies

do everything you can to not fund the woke LEFTIST media


3 posted on 06/09/2023 8:41:08 AM PDT by joshua c (to disrupt the system, we must disrupt our lives, cut the cable tv)
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To: joshua c

Jim Galt?


4 posted on 06/09/2023 8:43:43 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (e allowed )
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To: RobMorse
Summarized from the article:

Burnout... believe it is increasingly common in jobs that demand responsibility and accountability yet don't provide the tools and time to fulfill these demands.

1. The steady increase in workloads, paperwork, compliance and make-work. There is only so much we can accomplish, and if we're burdened with ever-increasing demands for paperwork, compliance, useless meetings, training sessions, etc., then we no longer have the time or energy to perform our productive work.

2. Loss of autonomy, control, belonging, rewards, accomplishment and fairness... any work environment that reduces autonomy, control, belonging, rewards, accomplishment and fairness. Despite a near-infinite avalanche of corporate happy-talk ("we're all family,"--oh, barf) this describes a great many work environments in the US: in a word, depersonalized. Everyone is a replaceable cog in a great impersonal machine optimized to maximize profits for shareholders.

3. The politicization of the work environment. Let's begin by distinguishing between policies enforcing equal opportunity, pay, standards and accountability, policies required to fulfill the legal promises embedded in the nation's social contract, and politicization, which demands allegiance and declarations of loyalty to political ideologies that have nothing to do with the work being done or the standards of accountability necessary to the operation of the complex institution or enterprise.

4. The competent must cover for the incompetent. As the competent tire of the artifice and make-work and quit, the remaining competent must work harder to keep everything glued together. Their commitment to high standards and accountability are their undoing, as the slack-masters and incompetent either don't care ("I'm just here to qualify for my pension") or they've mastered the processes of masking their incompetence, often by blaming the competent or the innocent for their own failings.

5. As the competent leadership leaves, the incompetent takes the reins, blind to their own incompetence. It all looked so easy when the competent were at the helm, but reality is a cruel taskmaster, and all the excuses that worked as an underling wear thin once the incompetent are in leadership roles.


It's not burnout, it's risk management and revulsion. The risks in too many workplaces outweigh the rewards.

5 posted on 06/09/2023 8:44:51 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: T.B. Yoits
"Burnout... "
~~~



6 posted on 06/09/2023 8:47:15 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: RobMorse

Do you mean “What happens when Atlas Shrugs?”.


7 posted on 06/09/2023 8:49:32 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Ron, start your own movement - don't try to kidnap Trump's!)
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To: RobMorse

Do you mean “What happens when Atlas Shrugs?”.


8 posted on 06/09/2023 8:49:32 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Ron, start your own movement - don't try to kidnap Trump's!)
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To: z3n
Re: Photo of Patton smacking soldier.

Could you imagine trying to convince a soldier today to go fight and die for a cabal of globalists?

9 posted on 06/09/2023 8:49:52 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: RobMorse

What I have found (from having lived/worked in communist countries) is that the competent are MISUSED and ABUSED by society. The peaks where they can stand-out are leveled and suppressed (how else can the competent excel, except to stand out?), while the incompetent and political are raised.

Only after confronting that, do people “opt out.”

Its already being seen in corporate America.

Do you think anyone at Budweiser who thought the “tranny thing” was a bad idea would have spoken out? No way.

I believe it is also already true in Government, particularly in key areas like the Military.


10 posted on 06/09/2023 8:54:09 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: T.B. Yoits

Pretty easy to start engaging in malicious compliance and work to every arcane, stupid rule or process and effectively never accomplish anything again.

A lot of managers and business types simply have no clue how much the success of a business requires the initiative of motivated individual contributors.

Micromanaging them to the point where they simply start engaging in blind compliance has destroyed more businesses than anyone knows.


11 posted on 06/09/2023 8:57:56 AM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: T.B. Yoits

Could you imagine trying to convince a soldier today to go fight and die for a cabal of globalists?

~~~

Shell shock and PTSD are real.
Almost all soldiers in the actual time of war pick themselves up by their boostraps and push on. It’s after the action where it gets harder.

I posted that because people today don’t even see anything like real stress, real threats, real risks. Everyone throws around “existential threats’ when they are talking about petty social issues, and everyone seems to act like having a few responsibilities are some horrible experience.

Perhaps that soldier didn’t deserve to be slapped around, because he did experience a real ‘existential threat’. The people who need to a slap are the ones who can’t handle a job with a few demands. They have no idea how lucky they are to even be put into a position of responsibility.

I get it. Stress is experiential. People blow up the magnitude of their own problems.
But that is why sometimes you need a slap in the face. Get out of your own stupid head and man up.


12 posted on 06/09/2023 8:58:52 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: RobMorse

Charles (the author) is a brilliant guy with amazing insights.

His writings are well worth anyone’s time:

https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

He is a systems thinker—he focuses on second and third and fourth order effects that are hidden from the casual observer.


13 posted on 06/09/2023 9:02:11 AM PDT by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: T.B. Yoits
Could you imagine trying to convince a soldier today to go fight and die for a cabal of globalists?

One of the US Army's recruiting ads... Raised by two loving and inspiring mothers, Emma excelled in school. But as a college student, she realized the challenge she truly sought required a surprising new direction.

https://youtu.be/MIYGFSONKbk

Our US officer corps in the US went off in a bizarre woke direction under Obama. Those who didn't go along with the program were purged from the services. Our readiness to fight and win foreign conflicts has become severely compromised. Our adversaries understand our weaknesses.

Here is the contrast between Russian and US recruitment ads.

https://youtu.be/5ZyIcwPc820

14 posted on 06/09/2023 9:03:38 AM PDT by fireman15 (Irritating people are the grit from which we fashion our pearl. I provide the grit. You're Welcome.)
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To: absalom01

Yep I think Atlas will just shrug


15 posted on 06/09/2023 9:04:29 AM PDT by john316 (JOSHUA 24:15 ...choose you this day whom ye will serve...)
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Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: RobMorse

Years ago I was struck by how many people I came across who were anxiously looking forward to getting out of the rat race, and retiring as soon as possible. And that was before wokeness became a pervasive irritation in the work place.


17 posted on 06/09/2023 9:16:02 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: T.B. Yoits

There will be hundreds of young Ukrainian soldiers who will do precisely that today and tomorrow and did that yesterday.


18 posted on 06/09/2023 9:22:45 AM PDT by hardspunned (Former DC GOP globalist stooge)
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To: RobMorse

“What happens with the competent retire, burn out or opt out?”

the whole premise of Atlas Shrugged ...

and definitely happening right now in a big way in the medical field in the U.S. ...


19 posted on 06/09/2023 9:24:00 AM PDT by catnipman (In a post-covid world, ALL "science" is now political science: stolen elections have consequences)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

Who is Jim Galt?


20 posted on 06/09/2023 9:25:28 AM PDT by Zack Attack
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