The Danger of Excessive Competence

I am not generally opposed to competence. In fact, I am all for it -- I like competent people since they can get things done well without an undue amount of trouble for all concerned parties. The problem comes, then, when a competent person oversteps her bounds and begins to become supercompetent.

It happens slowly, of course. At first, it is just a too-eager response to a manager or supervisor when they are assigning her to a task. She comes dangerously close to being enthusiastic about work, which is a trait that the system should have been beaten out of her between the 6th and 8th grades. By the time she was in high school, she should have developed a well-pointed disdain for any sort of assignment given her by anyone in authority. Something along the lines of "Ohmygosh, I can't believe you're giving me WORK to do" or "Oh, how sweet, you still think you are in charge of me."

And yet, somehow, she has slipped through the system with a modicum of her work ethic intact. Who knows how or why -- perhaps she was homeschooled, or maybe she just spent too much time with the wrong crowd. There is no point in flinging accusations and recriminations at this point; the barn door was open, she got out, and nothing we can say now can backdate the shutting of said door.

The important part is that she has begun to ruin her own life and the lives of her co-workers. Again, this occurs gradually. Her bosses, gratified by her willingness (and capability) to actually do good work without being coerced or threatened, do not immediately take advantage of her. They praise her, promote her, coddle her for a little while.

Initially, her co-workers are cautiously approving. They rightly figure that if she is willing to work harder, be more conscientious, and do her tasks more thoroughly, the team will perform better without them having to actually change anything. This may mean more prestige or better bonuses, and they don't have to do a thing to gain it.

But they, like our hapless hypercompetent heroine, don't see the long-term dangers of the situation. First and foremost, management will soon build up an immunity to her current level of supercompetence. This, in turn, will necessitate increasingly higher levels of competence if she wishes to attain the same performance level.

Worse still, managerial expectations for other team members will also increase. Managers will realize, "Hey! Our employees may potentially have the ability to do things correctly the first time, thereby increasing productivity, efficiency, and overall performance! Perhaps we should expect everyone to be competent!" Which, of course, is a death knell for the rest of the team.

Not even the excessively competent one is immune from the negative effects of her actions. She is constantly asked to do more and more things as she demonstrates that she is capable of getting tasks done. Eventually, her Outlook inbox fills up, never to be emptied again. She may block off an entire afternoon, resolved that she is going to be caught up TODAY... but she can't stop the e-mails from coming, and she sure can't stop people from marking them "urgent."

Her fate, then, is somewhere between drowning and suffocation, as she slowly runs out of time and enthusiasm. And about the time that she loses the will to live, she is promoted to middle management, where the circle of life can be completed. It is a tragic fate, but also somehow appropriate, as are so many of the most heartrending sights in this world.

On Brush Thievery

My suspicions began shortly before Independence Day. At first, I was somewhat less than credulous about the prospect. After all, I thought to myself, who on earth would steal something so... worthless?

And yet, little by little, the pile of dried-out brush on the walkway next to my garage continued to shrink. Initially, I had attributed its diminution to the simple processes of nature. When I cut that brush at the beginning of June and piled it in its place behind the trash can, it had been resplendent with verdant foliage. As the weeks progressed, however, the leaves dried up and began to blow away, leaving the pile (I thought) a little less impressive than it initially had been.

My original plan of disposal was dependent on thrift, as so many of my plans are. I would borrow a friend's truck and take the mound of branches to a place of disposal, if I could
a.) find a free Saturday morning
b.) arrange for my friend not to need his truck that same morning
c.) overcome the revulsion in the bottom of my soul that arises every time I am required to pay any money at all for any goods or services that seem less than absolutely necessary (such as a fee to allow a forestry center to recycle my yard waste into mulch that they then sell by the truckload to interested parties)

So there I was, slightly less than a month later, and my three conditions still had not been met. Nonetheless, as I mowed the lawn that day, I noticed that the pile seemed to be getting smaller. And the more I thought about it, the less able I was to attribute this to the normal shrinkage of drying leaves. It was seriously smaller; I was able to get my lawn mower through to the back yard without my normal tortuous strivings.

Something was very wrong here.

Yet, as the weeks progressed and the pile continued to vanish, I was unable to find the culprit. Until yesterday, that is.

My wife and I were coming home from a friend's house, and as we pulled into the driveway, we saw a jeans-clad figure hunched over in the yard by our brush pile. I knew it was time to act, so I flung open the car door and raced over to the scene of the crime.

"Hi, Pat!" I said. "Nice day, isn't it?"

She looked up sheepishly. "Yes," she replied, a twinkle in her blue eyes. She brushed a loose strand of white hair from her face. "So nice, I thought to myself, 'Pat, you've just got to get out of the house and do something in the yard today.'"

"Well," I responded, feeling grateful and ashamed all at once, "I appreciate you stealing my brush pile."

"Aw, it was nothing," she said. "I have extra room in my yard-waste cans every week, so I thought I'd just help you get rid of this pile. Besides, what are neighbors for?"

What, indeed.

I love this town.

St. Paul's Blog 5: The Rest of Acts

Jerusalem was really exciting. I started a riot in the temple (not even on purpose!). It didn't stay in the temple for very long, though, because they decided to drag me out into the street so they would have more room to beat me. A cohort of Romans came by and calmed the crowd down some, which was nice. I knew an opportunity when I saw it, so I asked him to let me say a few words to the crowd in Hebrew. After the crowd shouted me down and started throwing dirt and clothing into the air, the Roman commander decided he should probably take me someplace a little safer (like prison).

I met some different rulers, like Felix, Festus, and Agrippa (no, I didn't make fun of their names, but it was pretty hard). I got to preach to all of them, and it went pretty well, I suppose, because nobody fell asleep and plummeted to their deaths or anything.

So now I'm on my way to Rome to preach to the Emperor. Of course, my escorts and I have had a few little problems, such as a shipwreck. The captain can't say I didn't warn him... "Let's wait for winter," I said. "We're all going to die," I said. But nooooo, he just HAD to get to Phoenix before the winter set in.

The soldiers were all for killing us prisoners when the ship ran onto an island after being buffeted for a couple of weeks at sea, but the good ol' centurion kind of liked me and wanted to make sure I got to meet the Emperor, so he let us live. Then, a snake almost succeeded where the soldiers left off -- who knew that snakes liked the fire so much? -- but God saved me yet again!

I'm more convinced than ever that God will use me just how He wants to, no matter how many riots or high priests or soldiers or snakes try to stop Him. Regardless of what happens to me in Rome, He will be glorified, and if I die in the process, I just get to see Him face to face that much quicker! Talk about a win-win situation.

St. Paul's Blog 4: Acts 18:23-21:17

I'm kind of tired lately. There has been a lot to do here in Asia. For instance, it seems like every time I turn around, someone is wanting me to use their handkerchief. I do my best, but there's only so much snot one man can expell before his nose gets sore. This is definitely not what I meant when I said "all things to all men."

Here's how exhausted I am: I hardly even put up a fight when my friends told me not to go down to the big riot at the Ephesus Theater... and you know how much I love a good riot every now and again. It's probably for the best that I didn't go, because the city clerk stopped the riot pretty quickly without even preaching a lot to make the people madder at him. What a boring ending.

I guess I'm not the only tired one around, though. A few weeks ago I was preaching in Troas, and some kid named Eutychus fell asleep during my sermon. I was kind of ticked off because I had only been talking for a few hours and I was barely halfway through my first sentence! He died (a fall from a three-story window will do that to you), but I wasn't done preaching yet, so I raised him from the dead, gave him something to eat, and made sure he was sitting on the front row for the rest of my sermon. THAT should teach him a thing or two.

We're in Caesaria now, on our way back to Jerusalem. I've been trying to get some rest, but it's hard since about every half hour, one of Philip's daughters starts prophesying. Most of their prophecies are pretty good, but every once in a while, one of them will talk about a tiger in the woods and how he will be the master of some tournament of catching eagles and other birdies with traps made of sand. Now that just doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaking of prophets, one stole my belt the other day. When I tried to get it back, he tied me up and basically said that there was a lot more where that came from if I kept going toward Jerusalem. You might think I was in quite a bind, but really I was knot. I knew that with Christ on my side, I would never have to be afrayed!

Jerusalem, here I come.

St. Paul's Blog 3: Acts 15:36-18:22

Hi again! Boy, it's been a while. I kind of lost track of time, what with all that wacky circumcision hullabaloo! It wasn't exactly what you'd call a cut-and-dry case, but I think we managed to slice through the complexities of the situation and come up with a fairly incisive resolution.

After that was over, Barnabas and I wanted to go back to see all of our old friends to encourage them in their faith. The only problem was that Barnabas wanted to bring his whiny little quitter of a cousin with us. I basically told Barnabas that if John Mark came along, I might end up martyring him myself, so we agreed to disagree and went our separate ways. Consequently, I have a new buddy named Silas who came on this trip with me. He has a very nice singing voice, which may seem irrelevant, but it came in handy later.

After picking up Timothy (and circumcising him, just to be on the safe side), we headed to the part of Asia that is famous for its Macedonia Nut Cookies. Of course, being who we are, we immediately got into some trouble. We cast a demon out of a slave-girl, but instead of thanking us, her masters made the Romans mad at us. I guess they preferred to have their possession intact, so to speak.

After we had lost our shirts and quite a bit of blood, the kind jailer escorted us to his very nicest cell. To thank him, we sang some songs, and I think I can say without being immodest that we brought down the house. The jailer said it just about killed him to hear it. Then the jailer and his whole family got saved, and the Roman officials apologized to us! It all goes to show you that God continues to be faithful, even when you're getting stripped and beaten and no one in the whole town has even offered you a single one of their famous regional cookies.