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It is not my job

Written by on July 12, 2007

This has to be one of the best examples of "it is not my job" I have ever seen. "Not my job" is when people do stupid things, and they know it, but it is "not my job" to fix it, so it stays broken.

Here is a picture from a Danish city, where they recently turned a one-way street into a shopping street and closed it off at one end. Obviously they had to do something, so the city worker was told to set up a "dead-end" sign.

(photo credit: JP)

Now they got a one-way street with a dead-end...

The amazing thing is not that the city authorities made a mistake, but the attitude of the city worker. He actually put up the "dead-end" sign. He knew that it was stupid, but since it was "not his job to fix it" he just did it anyway.

This is something that should never happen. If you do something that you know is wrong - stop doing it.

Take a look at this excellent presentation by Seth Godin at Gel 2006 to see more examples.

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Thomas Baekdal

Thomas Baekdal

Founder of Baekdal, author, writer, strategic consultant, and new media advocate.

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