Company Policy

[Gord]

Not sure if this one has been on the board or not before, but it is so true it is worth repeating if it has been.

Company policy:

Start with a cage containing 5 monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the rest of the monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original 5 monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace the original 3rd monkey with a new one. then the 4th, then the 5th. Most of the monkeys taking part in the beatings have no idea why they are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the punishment of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know, that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how company policy begins.

[geechie]

Well, we are after all, just a slightly less hairy ape. Jared Diamond calls us (Homo sapiens, that is) "The Third Chimpanzee".

I'm O.K. with that, but somebody should do something about those really dumbask apes out there. They're giving the rest of us hominids a bad name.

George

[JCsman]

That story was used by the former head of our agency on a routine basis. She said our agency would operate on a higher plane, we are going to "empower" our "team", employees were our greatest asset....blah....blah.....blah.

We used to refer to our (just departed) boss as Fireman Joe (or Ice Water Joe) because he's the best example of the hose holder we could ever imagine.

Needless to say many of us rolled our eyes as she told the tale sitting beside our own "hoser".