One of my favorite sayings is "Tell the truth with one foot in the stirrup." It's apparently a Turkish reference, with great wisdom for those working for idiots, and I've found in my career, sadly, there idiots above us. I cadged this from a friend's website, www.alpinek9.com.
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."
However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included (boy, is this true in academia!).
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that since dead horses do not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course....
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position (close enough for government work!)
However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included (boy, is this true in academia!).
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that since dead horses do not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
And of course....
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position (close enough for government work!)
There's a new book out that's a tell-all about bad bosses, which is almost an oxymoron. I welcome your comments about your experience with bad bosses. When I lived in LA and drove an hour or more to work each morning, I listened to a station I liked that had a great gimmick.
Each Friday, you could call in and put your boss' name on the "suck wall." You called in and ranted about what a tit he or she was, then a spray paint sound started as the deejays "painted" the first name on the wall. It always made me laugh and made going into work a bit easier. It's no wonder I can't keep a job, is it?
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