Monday, April 23, 2012

Too Important


There are three people: Bob, John, and Jane.  Bob knows four languages, has won several state-wide competitions for giving speeches, and is an expert in ancient Egyptian culture.  John dropped out of college and knows nothing extraordinary other than how to outdrink everybody else where he attended college.  Jane is the CEO of a company that manages museums, and she is friends with John's mother (who is the CEO of a phone company).

 John needs a job.  Jane gives him a job at a museum showing tourists around.  It's a low-paying job and not important.  Jane keeps her good relationship with John's mother but does not risk putting someone inept in an important position.  Later, John's mother dies and leaves John nothing.  But John still works at the museum because he does show up for work and does his job.

 Bob needs a job.  He wants to manage a museum, but after going to several interviews and being literally kicked out the door the moment he hesitates to answer a question (he shows weakness), he decides that maybe he needs to start with a lower job and work his way up.  At first, doors are slammed in his face, but he finally gets a job as a tour guide at the same museum as Bob.  Maybe if he can prove himself, he can eventually get the job he desires.

 Fast forward a year, and Bob is a co-manager of the museum, and John is the senior tour guide.  The museum is losing money during an economic recession, and it needs to make some budget cuts.  Since Bob is a better worker and has gotten many raises, he makes a lot of money.  John makes a little more than he used to, but he still is not making that much.  Jane tells the manager of the museum to fire the people who make the most money.  Bob is out the door, and John replaces him as co-manager!

 Because Jane's company has fired all of its highest-paid employees (which were its best employees), it is only logical that the museum company will not be nearly as wonderful as it once was.  However, all of Jane's competition did the exact same thing, so the customers continue pouring in even though the company is now ran and maintained by a bunch of inept idiodic descendants of apes!

 The morals of the story?  If you want a job, know somebody important.  If you want to know somebody important, be important and worth the time of other important people.  If you can't know somebody important, start at the lowest level of a job and never show weakness.  If you're too good at your job, hold back so that you don't get fired when an economic recession comes around.

1 comment:

  1. Well if too many people suffer wage cuts then going to museums will be likely be cut out by many of those affected thus lower the museum's total income; on the other hand if saved money is allocated to producing more interesting exhibits the museum could see a growth in attendance, and therefore a corresponding increase in revenue...
    The "economy" as we think of it is a complicated beast. I understand the social point you aim to make here and have experienced the same phenomena, but it is worth remember that a lowly patent clerk in a single year rewrote our understanding of the universe.

    Besides, unless human brains to some REALLY strange and puzzling things, machines will outperform us ego-tripping-apes in most "intelligent" tasks within a half a century anyway... Maybe human ingenuity can offset human ignorance.

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