Word or phrase for doing something poorly so that someone else does it for you?
Let's say that I abhor doing a particular chore such as the dishes. Let's then say I intentionally do the dishes poorly. That way when my significant other sees the bad job I've done they stop asking me to do the dishes because they believe me to be utterly incompetent.
Is there a word or phrase for such behavior?
I refer to this tactic as, “Strategic Incompetence”. It is a tactic that, however effective in the short term, can prove disastrous in the long run, as one might eventually convince their significant other that one is as dumb as rocks, and that’s even worse than doing one's own dishes.
"Avoiding Strategic Incompetence"
• “He began to milk his lack of picnic knowledge for all it wasn’t worth. He responded to any inquiries or suggestions with questions and comments such as ‘how do you do that’, or ‘what did you guys do in the past’ or even ‘help me remember why we’re talking about this’. Ultimately, responsibility for the picnic was reassigned. Mission unaccomplished.”
• “Strategic incompetence isn’t about having a strategy that fails, but a failure that succeeds. It almost always works to deflect work on doesn’t want to do – without ever having to admit it. See, Bill Bilanich Avoiding Strategic Incompetence
You can consider the phrase shirk one's duty.
Shirk implies evasion or avoidance by means that suggest laziness or sneakiness.
I also came upon an article titled "Men deliberately do housework badly to avoid doing it in future" on telegraph.co.uk that is exactly about what you ask.
Most interesting of all, the study found that those men who deliberately shirk their household duties by doing a bad job on purpose usually get away with their dastardly scheme. A quarter of men said they no longer get asked to do jobs around the house, with 64 per cent saying they are only occasionally asked to help.
Rita Rudner, a comedian, referred to this as someone breaking the dishes so as to not get asked to do them ever again.