In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

You can't ignore people who bad at what they do and are trying to make it someone else's problem, but you can find allies who are good at what they do and want to take some pride and ownership in the same things you do.

If someone doesn't have a vision for how they will accomplish what is asked of them, that's an opportunity for mentorship. They might not take it from you, but you can offer it.

I actually think the really dangerous people are the ones you encourage people to seek out: those who think everything is easy. That to me is a sign of Dunning-Kruger. I'd rather sit down with somebody who says "I don't know yet how to solve this, but we'll work it out", than somebody who says "it's easy we don't need to think too hard about this" or "it's hard and so I won't even try".

Also, meetings, shared responsibilities - they're part of getting stuff done as part of a team. Instead of trying to avoid them, try to improve them. Learn the people skills needed to help a person change their habits towards being the productive ally that adds to a team rather than takes away from it.

It's not easy, it's hard, but you will figure it out. If I was working with you, I'd say "we", not "you" but alas...

And it’s true about the “fuck yous”. It instantly reminded me of an old coworker that was let go and was trying to joke about it, but the F U sticks aside from anything else he accomplished while there.

This has been scientifically proved wrong. Sonja Lyubomirsky writes that people come with innate levels of happiness, and apart from temporary swings (in either direction, in response to life events and activities), and apart from hugely intrusive, foundational trauma, "level of happiness" tends to remain constant for any given person's lifetime, and said level covers a huge spectrum, when viewed across people.

You can train your mind and habits to increase your happiness, but still, in her famous book, she assigns 50% weight to what level you are born with, and says that, however you fine-tune yourself only amounts to the other 50%. And, since her book was published, more recent research assigns an even higher weight to the innate level of happiness (i.e., higher than 50%). The sun does shine differently on different people, and it's not a mental health issue, it's just a given.

Think about it: if someone is born with 100% happiness, and never thinks consciously about their own happiness level, they will still be more happy (1 * 0.6 + 0 * 0.4 = 0.6), roughly speaking, than a person who is born with 0% happiness, but does everything in their power to improve (0 * 0.6 + 1 * 0.4 = 0.4).

> If you find yourself unable to be consistently at least /neutral/ in a first world country[,] that tends to be a mental health issue worth addressing.

I do agree about this; just know that the playing field is not level at all, and people who are less than moderately happy most of the time are not outliers; they are frequent.

I agree with your overall sentiment, but there’s another dynamic which doesn’t always lend itself well to a mentorship role: when the leader has no vision other than some vague concept. Sometimes we can politely corral them, but it’s extremely frustrating when that “vision” is predicated on some magic, black box operation that they think happens and they won’t listen to any technical advice on why their vision may not be feasible.

To the OPs point, we have limited resources in time, labor, patience, etc. It’s worth consciously deciding where those are best spent.

or, the other is about providing them the vision and the clear set of steps. Then checking their progress along those steps. (including revising the steps when the original plan diverges from the evolving reality).

Training and mentoring the people so they can become rock stars.