THE
ANT, a fable or maybe not
------------------------------
Every
day, a small ant arrives at work very early and starts work
immediately. She produces a lot and she was happy.
The
Chief, a lion, was surprised to see that the ant was working
without supervision. He thought if the ant can produce so
much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more
if she had a supervisor!
So he recruited a cockroach who had extensive experience
as supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.
The cockroach’s first decision was to set up a clocking
in attendance system. He also needed a secretary to help
him write and type his reports and... he recruited a spider,
who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.
The lion was delighted with the cockroach's reports and
asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates
and to analyse trends, so that he could use them for presentations
at Board‘s meetings. So the cockroach had to buy a new computer
and a laser printer and ... recruited a fly to manage the
IT department.
The
ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated
this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up
most of her time…!
The
lion came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate
a person in charge of the department where the ant worked.
The position was given to the cicada, whose first decision
was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his office.
The new person in charge, the cicada, also needed a computer
and a personal assistant, who he brought from his previous
department, to help him prepare a Work and Budget Control
Strategic Optimisation Plan …
The
Department where the ant works is now a sad place, where
nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset...
It was at that time that the cicada convinced the boss,
the lion, of the absolute necessity to start a climatic
study of the environment.
Having
reviewed the charges for running the ant’s department, the
lion found out that the production was much less than before.
So he recruited the owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant
to carry out an audit and suggest solutions. The owl spent
three months in the department and came up with an enormous
report, in several volumes, that concluded: “ The department
is overstaffed ...”
Guess
who the lion fires first?
The ant, of course, because she “showed lack of motivation
and had a negative attitude".
NB:
The characters in this fable are fictitious; any resemblance
to real people or facts within the Corporation is pure coincidence.