A proposal

One of my colleagues comments that he considers 4% unemployment to be "effectively full employment" because he believes about 4% of the population is simply unemployable - their work habits are too bad, they are too difficult of a person, they are too prone to screw up instructions - something.

This got me thinking.

I had a HORRIBLE Special Snowflake person this semester. Like, make-my-head-explode, make-me-begin-to-doubt-myself horrible. Like, at a couple points I was wondering "Am I going crazy? Did I just think I told him these things that he is now saying I never told this person?" This is someone who claimed some instructions were never given, and who made up instructions that were NOT given.

It turns out the person in question - who has an IEP- is either really adept at playing people (my chair tells me this person has driven three other colleagues "crazy" when they had him in their classes, and apparently one person even threatened to quit if this individual showed up in her section again) or is so messed up they can't function and really only remembers what they want to remember of conversations.

(I honestly believe it's the first of those two, but whatever).

At any rate: this person has been so difficult, and so unpleasant (mostly to me, but also on occasion to classmates) that I cannot imagine subjecting a boss or co-workers to this person's presence.

So here's my proposal. It's not quite modest, but whatever:

Even if we are reforming other entitlements (and I think we should), we create a new one. Come up with a fancy name for it but it's basically the I Don't Want Anyone To Have To Deal With This Person entitlement. Pay the 1% or whatever of the population who are just thoroughgoing jerks or whiners NOT to work. Bosses or professors or even parents could nominate people for this entitlement. There'd probably be a battery of tests to see how the person follows instructions and copes with boredom, repetitive tasks, and how they treat other people. People who fail - who can't follow instructions, who whine about being "bored," and who harass other people around them who are trying to work - get put on this plan and are effectively paid to stay out of the public's hair.

I do see one problem with this. I can see lazy people acting like jerks or whiners to get it. So there'd have to be some limitations on it. I'm not sure what. Maybe limitations on things like, "You can't go to the movie theater on the opening weekend of a movie, you're not allowed to harangue grocery cashiers ESPECIALLY if there is a line behind you, and so on).