Yes, This Includes You

Even if you're a Delta, respect the warnings and keep your hands off

This reaction from a reader concerning my advice to stop helping was amusing, and, I’m afraid, fairly typical for the Deltas.

Reaction #1: "Hahaha! What an idiot! MPAI, indeed!! Hahaha. Except me of course."

Reaction #2: ...

Reaction #3: print out and pin to my wall.

But the reaction, and the idea that straightforward instructions only apply to everyone else, not the narcissistic special boy, is apparently all too customary.

Recently, a pair of Deltas took it upon themselves to change the presets on a piece of equipment that they had little knowledge of apart from pressing the power button, because they thought the preset looked "wrong". They had been told explicitly not to fiddle with it and to only press the power button. They happily told everyone on the company forum that they had changed the settings and that no one should touch them, since they were now correct. The delta responsible for it ran to check it when he read their post, but it was too late. It broke within minutes of use, and it was maaaybe months old.

There were even stickers on the controls (literally on the buttons and knobs) that said "do not touch". The previous set broke for the same reason, and it also had stickers, and everyone had been given hands on instruction on how to use it (literally, press power button - done). The next set gets a damn cage.

Why do deltas such as these think rules and literal warning labels don't apply to them?

As I have mentioned, the downside of Deltas is their narcissism. Because they are the fix-it men, the self-fancied “stealth Alphas” upon whom everyone else relies just to exist and function, the literal salt of the Earth who make things and feed people and protect children and support their families, they not unreasonably regard themselves and their judgment as being superior in their own domain to everyone else.

Note that the two Deltas not only ignored the orders they’d been given, but then issued instructions of their own that no one else should touch the incorrectly modified settings. Deltas are prone to displays of competing competence; telling a Delta not to interfere with something is sometimes perceived as a challenge to him and his competence. So, it’s not unlikely that the mere existence of an instruction not to touch something will actually serve as a virtual invitation for him to do so, just to prove that he can.

Which, unfortunately, can lead to disaster, as this female reader explained with a little bit of nightmare fuel.

They don't know what they don't know. They exist in a little knowledge silo and it doesn't occur to them that anything exists beyond the walls of their domain.

When my husband used to work in aerospace one of the guys lost his hands because someone didn't think the lock out/tag out process applied to him and re-engaged the power on a machine while the tech was still elbows-deep in it. All of those light curtains and other fail-safe devices in manufacturing exist to counteract delta narcissism.

There is, as the readers surmised, some fundamentally broken logic at work here. The fact that one is very competent at one thing, or even one range of things, does not mean that one is necessarily competent anything outside of that range, much less everything. This applies to everyone, not just Deltas.

And just because you set the rules in your area of competence does not mean that you are justified in ignoring or even questioning the rules outside that area. This is particularly true for those Deltas who are proud of their ability to figure things out. So, if you’re a Delta, keep in mind that if you happen to harbor the following beliefs, there is a very good chance that you will, sooner or later, screw up in an absolutely epic manner and absolutely no one is going to accept your sputtering protests that will inevitably begin with “but… but… I thought…” with any more grace than you have shown the incompetent in the past.

1. The rules don't apply to me.

2. The instructions don’t apply to me.

3. The warning signs don’t apply to me.

4. The specific order that I have been given by my boss doesn’t apply to me.

5. My bosses are stupid.

6. Everything would be better if everyone just listened to me.

7. I figured out X, therefore I can figure out Y.

“Yeah, I know it says not to smoke, but what could go wrong?”

Always assume that they apply to you. And if you think they shouldn’t, verify that with the appropriate parties first. Remember, the aphorism about it being better to obtain forgiveness than permission doesn’t apply when a public warning against it is posted.