Often it’s those not directly involved in the failure of a task, who claim to have been able to foresee its downfall all along.

Problem is, this wisdom is only ever offered after the aforementioned debacle.

Must be one of life’s most enduring queries: why is it that the world’s supervisors, spectators; onlookers and overseers generally appear more qualified and at a broader range of tasks, than the supposed professionals?

As a woodsman fells a tree which drops the wrong way, the teacher in a nearby building can see what he did wrong; as a snowboarder lands a jump but sprains his knee, a congregation of skiers could have told him that was going to happen; as a truck driver’s load shifts on a bend causing his rig to roll over, the driver of the proceeding car sees exactly what the truck driver did wrong…

For you see we are that good – that clever, that insightful; that perspicacious.

Evidently New Zealand comprises a highly skilled, vastly knowledgeable; yet somewhat bashful population.

Skilled and knowledgeable in that we invariably know why things didn’t go right; then once they’ve gone wrong we are awesome enough to be able to point out that we knew that was going to happen. Bashful in the sense that we don’t ever seem to have the gumption to step up, put into practice our superior perspicacity and stop those things going wrong in the first place…

Wait. Is it lack of gumption – a startling deficit in the fortitude of man – or is it that as members of such an exclusive population we are basically a pretentious breed of people; who are inherently full of shit?

Well. As a NZ male, believe me, I know. Oh yeah, I know it all. A great many of us are indeed, full of shit. Some of us will make out like we know how to do stuff even though we don’t. Some of us act as if we don’t need any help with anything at all even though we do. Some of us preach about the best way to do stuff as if we know the best way even though we don’t. Some of us like to throw around a lot of big words and clichés in an attempt to make ourselves appear learned even though we’re not…

Some of us – these are the worst ones – like to elevate ourselves by not participating but waiting, then taking the retrospective high ground.

These pompous dickwads like to stand back and watch development unfolding while ever so helpfully pointing out imaginary problems; then once the task is complete and if a genuine issue is noticed, these pillocks come down from their lofty perches, hurry to board the bandwagon then kindly, retrospectively, start advising people on how it should have been done.

Man, these people are awesome. They are the complete package: skilled, knowledgeable, bash…

In my experience, those who elect to wait it out from the safety of the retrospective high ground rather than actually assisting in a process, are generally those who have no ability anyway. They will likely act as though they do but rest assured, they don’t. The only thing at which these people excel, is taking away from the glory of achievement.

Of course people who are genuinely awesome do exist but they’ll be hard to find – they don’t go around making a big deal of it.

Article by Mit Reklaw

Edited by A R Swipe

Photography by Pauline Ura Head