I had a rough week at work. Lots of stress dealing with a person whose worth to the company is questionable at best. I ran across this on hr.com and found it chillingly relevant:

Incompetence, Defined

“What do we mean when we say someone is an incompetent?” asks Matthew Budman, managing editor of The Conference Board Review. “One definition: An incompetent is someone who is defined by his mistakes. Everyone makes the occasional error or bad decision or lapse in judgment. Most of them go unnoticed. But at some point, failure becomes the norm and even that person´s defining characteristic.”

Do They Know They´re Incompetent?

Of course, it´s not only the modern workplace that creates incompetence - the Principle holds that the hierarchy itself, through promotions, transforms capable workers into shaky bosses. “In addition, incompetence begets incompetence: Managers with poor judgment hand out assignments to the wrong people, delegate tasks to those who can´t handle them, and force others out of their zones of responsibility,” Budman writes. And despite workplace personality testing, companies keep putting the wrong people in charge. “Just think of all the books you´ve seen about dealing with toxic bosses, and consider that each of those toxic bosses was, at some point, promoted to that position of responsibility.”

You Can´t Just Fire Everyone

Comparatively few workers are what Peter termed “super-incompetents,” and companies tend to tolerate those whose performance is mediocre. “Firings are unpleasant for everyone involved,” Budman writes, “and it´s no wonder that it´s the solution of last resort.” To avoid making painful decisions, organizations kick incompetents upstairs, re-route important work around them, and go through other contortions.

Complete copy of “Can We Turn Back the Rising Tide of Incompetence?” by Matthew Budman is available here.

I think one of the greatest gifts of getting old is the ability to look back on your life and ponder why you acted a certain way or developed a certain habit or way of life. One of the things that I have noticed about myself is that I tend to be hopefully pessimistic about things.

That is to say that I am hopeful that things will go my way and work out, but prepared from the start for the very real possibility that it will fail. Looking back at the emotional roller-coaster that Karin and I rode for years trying to conceive, its no real shocker that I tend to hold this view.

I think its also a reason why I am so varied in my interests and hobbies. If I try something and hate it, I can just move onto something else. No pressure, no worry of failure.

Once in a while, everyone needs to step outside of their comfort zone. Today is my day. With the ever growing wait times in China, we decided to start a concurrent adoption for an eight year old girl from Taiwan named Chia-Jung.

We fell in love with her story and knew she was destined to be our daughter. So we applied to adopt her. We were one of five families under consideration. Yesterday we were told that they have narrowed the number of families down to three, and that we were one of the three.

They had additional questions for ourselves and one other family. What did this mean? Did they like the two who were asked more questions better than the one who did not? Or did it just mean that we needed to provide more information to match the one not asked? Maddening questions to contemplate. So, we provided our answers to the best of our ability and sent the paperwork off to be sent to Taiwan.

Normally I would try to not think about the process during the waiting period. I would assume that we would not be chosen, and prepare myself accordingly. Self, I say… SCREW THAT! I am going to hope and pray and wish and dream and invest myself emotionally with all of my will bent on the assumption that we will be chosen.

When or not we are chosen, I expect to be flooded by unbridled emotion. It will either by joy or grief, that much I know. What I refuse to do this time is wall myself off from the potential pain. All I have to say is…. You better bring it!

I work as a networking services supervisor, a job that lives and dies on its ability to keep systems up and running and in a state that can easily be recovered from in the event of failure. Why then did I take the most minimum of steps to prevent it from happening at home? I am a dumb ass that is why. No other explanation.

Funny thing is, when I talk to my associates only one of them has done more than I have by way of backup and recovery. Bah.

So the iMac downstairs took a crap, I have limited photo backup, and none of Karin’s stuff backed up. All my attempts to recover have come up with no indication that the hard drive even exists.

We ran the Apple hardware testing tool and it came back saying everything was fine, Karin is taking the iMac to a past co-worker who has access to some heavy duty tools to see if he has any better luck. Keeping my fingers crossed.