Quote Originally Posted by BlueCat
Here's a hypothetical question BlueCat: You and 'Fred' are working together at a certain company. Your boss pulls you aside and says "Blue, your work is incredible. You could be the best ever at this line of work and have the potential to revolutionize the industry and be wildly successful. Only one problem. You are so good that we don't need Fred anymore. So, I give you a choice. You either need to cut down your productivity, become complacent and remain where you are forever. Or, accept the fact that for you to succeed, Fred has to lose his job". So Blue, what's your choice?

My choice would be to speak with my bosses boss because if I am that good and the best my boss can do is the Rumsfeld solution, drop productivity or down size its not my co worker that needs firing.

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LOL, Why didn't I see this coming. Shit, even a blind man could have seen this response coming from a mile away. I was hoping for a specific response but should have figured you would find a way to wiggle out of it.

The question itself was a simplification of the fact that, in the real world, in order to be successful there are hard choices to be made, and very often it comes down to the lesser of two evils. I'm not talling about questions such as choosing the legal, or illegal, path or between clearly immoral and moral decisions. I'm talking about the simple fact that many times in business, for someone to succeed someone else must be hurt.

So, let's go back to my question. Fred is clearly not productive. The boss has given him additional training, and tried him out in several positions, but he just isn't cutting it. But the boss has a good heart and doesn't want to fire Fred. But to keep Fred you can not advance. It's a simple question of distributing the resources. So, once again, what do you choose?

You see, businesses face these questions every day. While it would be nice if the boss had a magic solution and such awesome management skill that Fred could keep his job, most people do not. And, if they did have such awesome skills, they'd grow their organization into a huge corporation and the left would still bitch.