Weaponized Incompetence in the workplace

I have been hearing this term everywhere on the internet these days. Mostly from wives or moms complaining that their husband is using weaponized incompetence to get out of household chores like cooking or cleaning. If you don't know what it is, I'll break it down for you.

Weaponized incompetence is when someone does something incorrectly or really bad on purpose, so they won't be asked to do it again. Essentially they are forcing the other person in the relationship to step up and complete the task.

For example if a wife asks her husband to cook dinner and then he purposely burns said dinner or makes and leaves huge mess for her to clean up. In this scenario, the wife will usually step in to either fix it or be so annoyed that they won't ever even ask him to cook again.

Now I happen to be very lucky in love and I can't really relate to my husband doing this, because he doesn't. I was blessed with a cooking, cleaning, hard working, super Dad of a husband. But I see this behavior all the time with my co-workers. This tactic is a constant struggle in the workplace.

I can not even count the number of times I have had to "show" someone how to do something, because they just can't remember or don't know how to do it. This forces me into a situation where while I'm showing them, I'm essentially just doing it for them while they watch. Now the intention is that the next time this same task has to be completed they are supposed to remember how and complete that task on thier own. However, this never seems to happen. Some of my co-workers are seemingly unable to retain training, or I suspect that they are using weaponized incompetence to get out of thier assigned tasks.

I also suspect this happens to more than just me. There are several people within my office that are "working" yet I know there are only a handful that I can delegate tasks to and actually get a result. I know this is unfair to those who I can depend on, and I'm sure it causes resentment and burnout among staff.

Team building can help a little bit, but it's still boils down to certain people that are just unwilling to carry their load, and shirk off their responsibilities on others by pretending to not remember how to complete a task. Eventually these employees usually take care of themselves, but in the interim it can be super frustrating. And it makes me appreciate when I really have someone in place who is able to get the tasks done.

What about you? Have you seen this within your workplace?