Have you never had a meeting that bypassed the project manager? Where the three or four people who will actually figure out the technical details start a call and hash everything out in 15 minutes, after weeks of 1 hour meetings that everyone has avoided for months? Every meeting would be like that in a utopia; no more middle managers, just people who know what they're doing.
I've heard it described as "competence porn".
I've always thought of competence porn as something more like Suits or House M.D, where the entire point is to see cool smart people doing call smart things and vicariously feel cool and smart yourself by watching them do it. In Star Trek, the crew's competence seems incidental, but at least to me it doesn't feel like the point of the episodes is to show off how competent people are - it usually seems like either some sort of philosophical enquiry, a straightforward action/suspense, interpersonal drama, or some combination of them. So while competence does feature in the stories, I feel like it's handled with a lot more depth and realism than straight up pornography of competence. Star Trek is like competence erotica~
And I've always objected to that description.
Bringing an alien weapon of unknown capabilities on board and then test firing it right next to the ship's main reactor is not even the most stupid thing the super smart experts of the Starfleet's flagship did. It is a miracle the Enterprise hasn't been blown to its constituent subatomic particles at least a few times.
If you've ever met someone who is highly intelligent in general and absurdly skilled in their field, that's actually pretty realistic. Geniuses are just as prone to sporadically making incredibly stupid decisions as the rest of us.
It's competence porn. Every leader is actually the best person for the job, and they defer to the SMEs when it matters. Can you imagine if all your bosses were actually the best person for the job?
Honestly, maybe slightly justified by the nature of the setting? The number of ships that seem to exist in universe, compared to the number of entire planets full of people to draw crew from, is so low that one must imagine that the entry requirements can be exceptionally high. One could also imagine better technology might imply better education technology as well as more refined techniques for using it.
It is definitely the nature of the setting, especially in the TNG era. They even covered what it would take to get into Starfleet Academy, which would be the equivalent of trying to get into an official US military academy.
There is also an issue with the scale of Starfleet during that time. Starfleet was depicted as far smaller in TNG than expected or with that came out during DS9. Picard also hints that Starfleet is desperate for skilled crew by the time of Picard.
-
If your bosses were the best person for the job
-
If the SMEs and Dept Heads got there by merit and not because they're a kiss-ass, banged the boss, or being a nepo-baby
-
If people only speak when they have relevant information to add, not because they're in love with the sound of their own voice, have such a fragile ego they can't comprehend they're not the smartest person in the room
-
Everyone knows the goal and doesn't dick around with chitchat asking how the weather is, or how their weekend was
-
Captain Picard is absolutely not the person a traumatized child should talk to about their dead parents.
(Especially not if Locutus is the reason they died.)
I've had that, and it's amazing. Besides the salary, it's what I miss the most from my old job.
I think mfed112@discuss.tchncs.de has it right in another subthread. Star Trek: TNG doesn't quite reach the level of competence porn. Scotty does, though. Guy who is delighted to be sent to his room so he can catch up on his technical journals? Yeah, he's hyper competent.
Grand Admiral Thrawn of Star Wars is full out competence porn. Most of Timothy Zahn's novels are.
And they all turn up on time.
To paraphrase Picard from that one episode where they find the frozen people:
This is the 24th century, material needs no longer exist. The challenge is to improve yourself.
They're there because they see it as a way to improve themselves. So they want to be on time whenever they don't have other issues that are part of a storyline.
"You mean we could have already done this meeting already a dozen times before?"
"A dozen, a hundred, it's impossible to tell."
And it won't be something that could have been an email
This is the best hot take.
Omg is this the real reason why I lose it when my standup goes past twenty minutes into the umpteenth digression that is totally irrelevant to my work?
Ever notice a meeting room in Star Trek that has more than a handful of seats? They know about meeting productivity.
