A three-course Saturday set menu of anecdotes has settled the debate that’s puzzled philosophers and scientists alike – What is humanity’s defining trait?

Is it our ability to use tools and adapt? No.
Our conscious recognition that we exist? No.
Our capacity for knowing wrong from right and still doing wrong? No.

Our defining trait as the planet’s foremost species is incompetence.

And today I learned there are three types of uselessness that demonstrate the full range of humanity.

Type 1 – Overconfident incompetence

This type was exhibited by an elderly gentleman with a spring in his step who looked like a slightly taller Danny DeVito, but felt like a Jason.

I had parked myself into a yellow-walled Italian cafe halfway round my morning lap of Hampstead Heath and ordered my morning’s second black americano with milk (different to a white americano).

I was there to people-watch, and as soon as he strode in with his despondent wife, wicked eyes, and permanently clenched glutes, I knew Jason was the man for me.

Shortly after entering, Jason’s scorn alerted us to a problem that I’m sure hadn’t existed when I’d walked in.
The front door was ever so slightly ajar when it was “Closed”. And Jason was not shy in letting me and the seven other customers know that. He even got four stubby fingers out for physical speech marks whenever he said “Closed” to new eyes he caught before they could dart back to the safety of their phones.

Before he’d finished saying to the barista, “Do you mind if I fix the door?”, he was cockily balancing on a chair under the door and barking at her to bring him a Phillips screwdriver.
Even from his newfound height, Jason’s jaw was able to reach the floor when she gave him a flat head screwdriver. He turned to a fascinated customer base and raised his eyebrows while holding his palms up to the nearby ceiling.
I met his gaze, raised my own eyebrows and puffed my cheeks out.
I immediately regretted encouraging him because his palms spawned his four fingers of punctuation and the room suffered another “Closed”.

The Phillips screwdriver arrived, and the flat headed villain was returned, pointed down in exaggerated safety mode.
The door closer in question was one of those big, grey mechanisms at the top of big doors to slow them down and not slam.
No mean feat for anyone to fix… except Jason, as he’d tell you himself.
He went to work and quickly became absorbed.
He undid three screws while muttering, “What is this world coming to…? How is Jason the Generous the only one willing to save Joe Public from the devil’s draft…?”
I turned to his wife but didn’t need to ask, ‘Does he always talk to himself in the third person?’. She’d read my mind and nodded with a practiced embarrassment.

Suddenly, Jason froze and the muttering stopped. The almighty had taken out the wrong screws!
Jason’s wife couldn’t hide a wry smile at her cocksure husband’s cock-up.
A tennis match ensued where I and the other customers twisted our heads back and forth in disbelief between Jason breaking the door and the barista deliberately looking away by the opposite wall.

Clearly this happened every Saturday.

An oblivious customer walked in and nearly knocked Jason off his chair. But, after a tut, it shocked him back into work and he put the three screws back in, undid another three, wiggled the mechanism, and locked things back up.
He gently closed the door to, carried his chair back to his table, sat on it and put his muddy Reebok Classics up on a fresh chair for a well-earned rest. The barista winced as the unelected leader of we Argonauts soiled another cushion.

The whole cafe stared through the glass centre of the door. Waiting in trepidation, like the end of the second episode of all zombie series’ where the first one to turn hunts them down.

Eventually, a mother with a sleeping baby in a pram approached. She had heavy bags under her eyes, the baby kept her up a lot, and shaking limbs, she compensated with a lot of coffee. She was here for her next fix.
Before she could put the brakes on, Jason the Generous had opened the door for her. She flashed him an exhausted smile.
Jason couldn’t wait to test his work and when she was only an inch past him, he released the door.
Eight customers and an unhappy wife watched on again, bewitched. The zombie was in, let’s see if we can keep her warm.

The door picked up speed by the millisecond, and by the time it was half a foot from its destination, it was clear it wasn’t stopping.
The door thumped against the frame and the whole room shook.
Jason’s wife started laughing, the barista booed, the baby cried, and the mother screamed in Jason’s direction.
Jason instinctively spun the flat headed screwdriver, that he was in the process of stealing, from defence mode into attack.
He soon realised he was pointing a weapon at lady with a baby and put it in his pocket.
Jason gritted his teeth and seethed to his wife, “We’re going!”
She laughed her way out of the cafe with him.

Jason the Generous left without an apology nor an admission of guilt as the door he’d made a thousand times worse slammed behind him.
As the other customers groaned that their coffees were cold, and the mother screamed louder and louder as a procession of people banged the door, I was delighted to be a third of the way through understanding mankind.

Type 2 – Unconfident incompetence

An Amazon courier was the human who showed me what Type 2 looks like.

In the cafe, after I’d downed my iced black americano with milk, I ordered an ‘Arrive by 10pm’ Amazon delivery. I did so at the latest I could, which meant it was going to come close to the deadline.

My Amazon order

– 2x Aveeno (for sensitive skin) body cream, large bottle with pump attachment
Despite being body cream, I plan to use it as hand cream around the flat – a risk? Maybe.

– 2x Two-pack of 50 litre bin bags
They’re for my kitchen bin and I always pick the wrong size, usually undershooting. So, I went for the biggest that could arrive by 10pm, having decided a saggy bin bag would rank low on my growing list of life problems I have no intention of solving.

– 1x Toothpaste
Box always gets damaged when you order it from Amazon. I used to care, then I kind of did, now I don’t.

– 1x Roll of kitchen towels
For some reason they’re all rectangular sheets on Amazon, not square. So I’ve never bought the same brand twice, but I’ve come to quite enjoy the gambling element.

– 2x Aveeno (for sensitive skin) hand cream, small bottle without pump attachment
I forgot to delete them from my basket when I decided to go for the big bottles.

Yes, I’m the Amazon for household essentials guy. Even though it’s sometimes more expensive than the M&S for staples & Co-op for brands option, it’s simply too convenient.

Usually…

This Type 2 incompetent also felt like a Jason, except his mother insisted on spelling it with an i to separate him from the Type 1’s. She felt his negative potential in the womb.

Enter Jaison.
A 50 year old Amazon delivery driver who works the night shift for the extra money but is afraid of the dark. At 9.30pm, Jaison called me in an absolute flap, delivering me ultimatums instead of goods. He was refusing to leave his van and walk the 20 metres from the road to my flat.
It’s not the easiest flat to find, but I’ve lived here for 8 years and never had a courier who wasn’t willing to at least unlock his car door. Naturally, I was taken aback.
“I’m sorry, but what do you mean you’re not coming?”, I said with a furrowed brow.
He flapped, “You need to come here!”
“Sorry, but what do you actually mean?”
“I’m not coming!”
“Wut?”
“I don’t know where I am.”
“Yes you do.”
“No, I don’t! Come here.”
“How can I when you don’t know where you are?”
“Come here or I’m going.”
“No! It’s literally your one job to come here.”
“I’m gonna go!”
“No, I need my consumer staples tonight. The back of my hands will crack if you don’t come.”
“Wut?”
It was Jaison’s turn to be confused. I had him where I wanted him and was now on the side of nonsense. The side of attack.
“Look Jaison, we can work through this.”
“Hmm…”, he said, still stunned.
“Have you got maps on your phone?”
“Yes, but it’s not clear! I don’t like this, not one bit.”
“Ok Jaison, I need you to share your location with me on WhatsApp.”
“What?! No! I don’t want to do that on my phone.”
I had a flashback of trying to teach my dad how to use Copilot and telling him to ask it for a brief history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Old people.
I said to Jaison, “What do you see?”
“A street.”
“Right… What else Jaison?”
“A bus stop.”
“Ok, good Jaison.”
I’d become a 999 operator and I used his first name instead of full stops.
I continued, “What’s the number of the bus station?”
“It’s a letter not a number.”
It was like getting blood out of a stone.
“What letter is it?”
“It’s two letters.”
Now it was like pulling teeth. I’d had enough.
“Jaison, walk into the buildings and deliver me my parcel now!”
“No, it’s dark!”
The 999 operator had finished his shift.
“Now!”
The same persistent aggression strategy had worked on my dad with geopolitics and generative AI, and it worked again now.
He huffed, “Ok, fine. I’m coming.” Then he added, “Stay there.”
Stay there. The nerve on this nightlighter…

Within twenty seconds he was at my door and handed me my parcel while shaking his head more than a Type 1 incompetent being given a Phillips screwdriver.
He said, “You need to do something about this.”
“About what?”
He waved his arms around while looking to the sky with the terror of a coming apocalypse in his eyes. He said, “All this!”
I was deadpan. “You’re asking me to stop it being dark at night?”
He sighed, “I don’t even know anymore…”

I now understood the majority of the planet.

Type 3 – Contagious incompetence

By observing these Jasii in full flow, osmosis bled their blundering into my being and a, normally, cold and calculating academic forgot to press save. I’ve incompetently had to pen this same study twice, albeit with incredibly soft hands, courtesy of Aveeno (for sensitive skin) hand and body cream.

Call me Jayson.