Idiot on a team of intelligent people. I get pissed off at people being stupid. My team might get pissed off at me but that's their problem. And generally I like being around people smarter than me because I learn a lot from them.
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To be the inteligent person in a team of idiots is certainly one of the worst things that could happen to you.
Idiot on the team of intelligent people. I'd rather just be responsible for educating myself and not everybody else.
Idiot on a team of intelligent people. Hopefully, they'll put up with me long enough to point where I learn enough to stop being an idiot.
Congratulations on your new position in management.
I’d argue that management is simply a different skill. And the reason so many managers are bad is because they were promoted from roles that didn’t previously require management experience.
Let’s say you hire someone to bolt things together on an assembly line, and then three years later they’re managing projects (without ever having gone to school in those interim years to learn any management skills). Yeah, they’ll probably be a fucking awful project manager. Unless they’re naturally gifted at management and really good at thinking on their feet, they’ll be flying by the seat of their pants. They’ll be using a ton of maladaptive tactics that were developed for surviving, not thriving. Because their original skill set and experience wasn’t based in project management, and they haven’t done anything to further their managerial skills.
It’s the old “if you judge a fish by its ability to fly” quote, except that fish keep getting hired because they’re good swimmers, and then they get promoted into positions where they’re expected to fly.
There is nothing worse than working for an idiot.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
If you're the dumbest person in the room, are you in the right room?
Why is it wrong to be the smartest person?
Because I know how much of a dumbass I am. If I’m the smartest, the room is full of complete fucking idiots.
Because you'll be unable to learn anything. You'll eventually get dumber.
If the smart people are nice, I'd be ok being the idiot. Still might feel a little bad over not being able to help. Maybe I'll be the cheerleader. "Go team! Hell yeah! Crunch those numbers!"
I'll bring snacks?
Get a job as a software engineer and you'll spend most days feeling like both simultaneously
So long as the intelligent people are also kind. A group of intelligent people that are backbiting and cruel is the absolute worst.
Idiot on an intelligent team, I'll only get better
Intelligent in an idiot team, they will only make me dumber
In my early career I made a bit of a niche for myself being the idiot on a team of very smart people. My job was to ask the simple question that none of them considered before it was too late.
I've gone being the smartest person in the room in my previous couple roles (mostly because I was the only person with any IT or platform knowledge, not because I'm some prodigy) to the bottom of the totem pole and well behind the intelligence of my current team since I changed careers.
It's wonderful having people around that are smarter than me that I can learn from and ask questions to. It's hard being the idiot on a team when you're trying to improve and care about your work. Working with idiots that don't care or seemingly never improve is the worst. I've learned more over the past 8 months than I have since I started my professional career.
I like the phrase, "Never be the smartest person in the room". Sometimes it happens, but in most situations, there is someone else that is more knowledgeable about something than you, and that's an opportunity to learn.
Do you continue being an idiot outside the context of the team?
I’d rather be surrounded by people more capable than me (at least if I care about the success of the task), but not at that cost.
If I'm the smart one, I have to do all the work I can't trust to idiots, run the team or be on a team run by an idiot, be the most responsible according to any outside observer, and my success will still be mostly reliant on idiots.
If I'm the idiot, at worst I'd be mocked, but maybe I'd be too stupid to notice. At least the work would be more likely to be successful.
"idiot" and "intelligent" are not mutually exclusive. One can be both at the same time. There are intelligent people doing idiotic stuff.
I'm going to have to choose to be the intelligent person. You might think the idiot has it easy...they may even not know they are an idiot. But they could be so stupid they also think all the intelligent people are idiots, so they might get all the frustration of thinking they are the intelligent person on a team of idiots while actually being the opposite.
Depends what the team is doing. If it’s a marathon running team for charity, or a team of people picking up garbage on a beach, it probably doesn’t matter much.
Do I get dumber to become the idiot or is everyone else just smarter than me?
I've been both on different uni projects. Far better being the smart one in a group of idiots and just banging out the work without interference for a good grade. Being the idiot on the smart team was torture.
Just kill me now.
being an idiot is the wise choice here, sometimes it is
I suppose it matters at which capacity you enjoy teaching, if they were interested in learning and happy then I guess it wouldn't be terrible, but in general with people it'll never be an ideal situation and I just don't want that kinda pressure
Tough one.
The nice thing about beeing smart is you can pretend to be dumb. Otherway around is way harder. All im saying
It really depends on how interesting the people are and how good they are at storytelling. I've met super annoying smart people and really entertaining dumb people so it's not like intelligence is the determining factor.
I'd probably rather be hanging out with either the more interesting or more autistic group because I think we'd get along the best. If that makes me the idiot of the group, I don't think that's too bad of a deal.
I am not a team player
If I kept my level and get a team with >200 IQ, then I'll be the idiot any day.
I'm a middle aged industry engineer and having a team of morons at this point is so fucking tiresom.
They're not really morons. Companies obsessing about efficiency are just beating people in to lumps of apathy that don't want to use more than 2% their brain power on anything. If they also have a culture of punishment, it kills all initiative and you end up with mouth breathers with a thousand yard stare all day.
They both feel so terrible.
I guess, the best would be to be the idiot, and then get kicked out. Dragging everyone down with you comes with so much guilt (or should), while a bit of rejection beats the frustration of being a Cassandra.
Unless it's a team doing something evil, in which case you should make them idiots, and then quit.
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