It all started when some public workers were mowing some loose twigs and grass. It was 7 o'clock in the morning, a day before the 15th (which is like a bank holiday in Greece). Anyway, more than half of the city was relaxing due to summer vacation, but… nope. The guys had to do that at that specific time and day, yelling at each other, with all the noise lasting for about an hour, ruining the sleep of those lucky enough to have a day to relax and sleep a little more for once. It was then that it hit me.
Noticing how everyday people work today made me come up with the term minimally-skilled idiots, or MSI for short. The MSIs of the world are the ones who allow us to live. If they didn’t want to, we would all be dead. Let me explain the notion.
There are many skills that a human may have. Skills that I admire and fully wish to master at some point in my life. Speaking many languages, cooking, fishing, etc. I’ll take, for example, that guy who can shape balloons into animals—say, a dog. I marvel at that skill and I think that this guy is doing something amazing. It may be simple to him, but to me, this is something hard. I respect that guy.
Although the balloon guy has mastered that skill, there are some other skills relative to his job that he has no idea about. The skill to create a balloon, to analyze its material, to change its color, to learn the chemistry of how and why a balloon floats in the air, and so on. Most importantly, the skill that makes his skill actually meaningful: to sell the balloon. He only knows how to shape a balloon into some kind of animal. That’s all.
Think about it: most people don’t acquire new skills. They just suffice with what’s minimally needed of them in their daily jobs. Nothing more. They are paid for one thing, they do that thing they are paid for. If their job is to transfer an object from place A to place B, then that’s all. As if knowing something more—having another skill as well—is forbidden. It’s something too troublesome to bear. Because they think that a) a tough thing to do is only worthy if you’re paid for it, and b) everything else outside your job is just a waste of time and energy.
Now, why are the MSIs imperative for our survival? Take, for example, the taxi driver. He has one skill, the minimally-needed skill for this job: to drive. Say, my car meets his car at a crossroad and he doesn’t stop at the stop sign, and he crashes into me and kills me. What do we have now? A minimally-skilled person, who obviously is an idiot given that he didn’t stop at the stop sign, and who also is a killer.
If you look at it in reverse, you conclude that the only reason some of us live right now is because we haven’t experienced the full lethal potential of an MSI. That bus you take to go to work, that construction worker on the scaffolding beneath whom you pass by, that meal you had in that restaurant… The instances are immense. There can always and everywhere be an MSI that could potentially terminate your living on our sweet planet Earth. Isn’t that alarming?
Most of all, the politicians, the mirror of our society. They couldn’t be deeper into the MSI category. In fact, contrary to many common workers who at least have one skill, I honestly believe that there are politicians who have NO skill at all.
To sum up, these people who woke me up on the 14th of August didn’t even have the soft skills. To learn how to talk and communicate what you do among the people around you. Is it such a hard skill to practice? Especially soft skills—they are so useful in so many areas apart from your professional life. It’s a pity not to have them, really.
So, this is my advice to you: beware of the MSIs. They’re everywhere, and they’re coming to you. Respect them, protect yourselves against them, and never forget that you owe your living to them.
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