Dealing With Incompetence

About Dick Hunter Dick Hunter has been webmaster of popular gay sites such as RateARod and QueerFetish.com since 1999. In 2004 he began directing hardcore videos, such as his latest release "An Army Of Fun". In 2006 he launched this website, GayWebmasters.com.

One thing I learned shortly after I started my first business was to expect incompetence. It’s an inevitable part of life, and especially life on the web. I’m not talking about why your Grandma wears depends. That’s something else. I’m talking about people you depend on not doing their job right. I’m talking about mind-boggling levels of utter incompetence that, if you’re not careful, could have you pulling you hair out!

Perhaps incompetence is too strong a word, but it’s the one that always comes to my mind when I find myself in these situations. What situations? I won’t get into specifics, but they’re bound to come up. And when they do, it’s important that you just take a deep breath, and roll with it. If you expect incompetence, then when it occurs you won’t have a meltdown. And when it doesn’t, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I had a porn star friend who was trying to put together a website. He’d hire someone, tell them what he wanted, and then actually expect to get it. And when they didn’t meet the deadline, or got something wrong, or had some broken images, he’d freak out, scrap the whole project, and start all over with someone else. He did this like three or four times! It’s was crazy. He had all these half finished websites, but nothing online.

The lesson he needed to learn was to expect incompetence, and not freak out when the people he’s working with screw up. Deal with it and move on. Don’t get all frustrated and worked up. Don’t freak out. Don’t do and say a bunch of shit you’ll regret.

He ended up retiring to New Jersey, with a woman no less. Considering he couldn’t deal with incompetence, in this industry it’s probably for the best.