Hardworking and stupid make great employees though. The problem is for doing such a great job as cogs in the machine they get promoted into positions of authority and then it is hard to fault them too much because at least they are hardworking.
They would be terrible employees. Making mistakes and doubling down, too stupid to learn from them, and with the energy to follow any inane goose chase. Being stubborn is good only if you are right.
But they would make fantastic career politicians. You need a certain type of person to work hard to get yourself voted by telling whatever stories your voters care about, but also capable of believing your own lies and fighting for them till the bitter end.
I guess I'm too lazy to admire any of these personalities.
I think that here, lazy means "do as little as possible" and hardworking means "always do something", it doesn't mean people do or don't do as they are told.
Lazy stupid is fine because these people will execute the order to the letter and then slack off. If the order is clear, there is not much damage they can do. Hardworking stupid will try to do more and mess things up.
So if the order is to clean the toilets and the guy notices a leak.
The lazy stupid will clean the toilets
The hardworking stupid will clean the toilets and then attempts to fix the leak, mess things up and cause a flood
The hardworking clever will clean the toilets inspect the leak, try to do something, realize there is nothing he can do it and call the plumber
The lazy clever will take a look at the leak and call the plumber. He will not clean the toilets because he knows the repair will make a mess and it is therefore useless.
Lazy stupid was useless in that situation but didn't make things worse like hardworking stupid. Both clevers did the right thing, the difference is that hardworking wasted time but he executed the order, a reliable worker. Lazy may not be as reliable as a worker because he didn't execute the order, but he is the better decision maker.
You do understand that cleaning a damaged toilet is an invitation to a flood of excrement? Sometimes just touching a leak is enough to get the thing to explode.
So anyone not calling the plumber (or skilled at being one) who tries to clean it may end up in the dumps.
An actual plumber will clean it after fixing or during fixing.
Then there is a special category of people being just smart enough to get themselves into a situation they cannot handle. They tend to be hardworking but average or below average talented, not outright stupid.
These people tend to cause debt to accumulate, orders to get blocked or stonewalled, infinite delays, legal costs etc.
A stupid person generally will fail early and obviously, an average person, especially in skill or experience, will get themselves beyond what they can handle before they recognize being insufficient.
Yeah that’s more what I mean - the ones that take a shovel and dig a big hole in the wrong place. Then you have to fill in that hole AND dig the original one, and now you’re behind schedule.
