There is a lot of harm for everyone involved in this 8-word battle-cry.
Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. But if you can, do it. But the consequence is that you displace the person who was doing it. So now you are paying for their welfare.
Sometimes just because you can do something, is no reason to rush out and do it just for the sake of proving you can do it.
@griz if a person isn’t the 100% best to do the job, should they not be replaced? If you can get the job done cheaper, better, more effectively, smoother, more effortlessly, more efficiently, shouldn’t that be the top priority?
@Jear77
It of course is a consideration in a cold business world. But there’s always the risk you’ll end up replacing someone who is competent at and familiar with the job . . . with someone who just looks good on paper.
Or who has a prolonged learning curve that loses you money until they are up-to-speed.
Or who is arrogant in their ways and expects you to adapt to the way they want to do things.
Oh, and you will also create a climate of fear, mistrust and disloyalty in your workers. Following the example set by management, they will start jumping ship at the slightest hint of a better deal somewhere else.
This is what befell the last company that “laid me off” (even while they had an ad in the paper looking to replace me — which technically isn’t a lay-off but a firing with no stated reason!). It ended up costing them a year of my wages to urge me not to tell of the shady things I knew about them and $100,000+ in the first 2 years because of incompetent people who just looked good on paper and who didn’t know the quirks of our systems and blew things up!. And it started them on a roller coaster ride of hirings, firings, quitting etc that further hampered their profitability.
One of my greatest pleasures was hearing of these things through a highly placed friend who still had dealings with the company. They asked him in desperation if he knew someone who could . . . (and then they named off all the things I used to do). He told them he knew the perfect person for the job and gave them my phone number!
A top priority of just money, (the love of money), makes one little more than a cold heartless bastard.
@griz I’m surprised they didn’t do their due diligence. Contact all businesses. Contact all references. Background check. Social media check. Testing. With all that it’s VERY difficult to hire the wrong employee… but all that costs money…
6 responses to “anything you can do I can do better?”
anything? no
There is a lot of harm for everyone involved in this 8-word battle-cry.
Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. But if you can, do it. But the consequence is that you displace the person who was doing it. So now you are paying for their welfare.
Sometimes just because you can do something, is no reason to rush out and do it just for the sake of proving you can do it.
@griz if a person isn’t the 100% best to do the job, should they not be replaced? If you can get the job done cheaper, better, more effectively, smoother, more effortlessly, more efficiently, shouldn’t that be the top priority?
@Jear77 …You can be replaced by a broken toaster…lol
@Jear77
It of course is a consideration in a cold business world. But there’s always the risk you’ll end up replacing someone who is competent at and familiar with the job . . . with someone who just looks good on paper.
Or who has a prolonged learning curve that loses you money until they are up-to-speed.
Or who is arrogant in their ways and expects you to adapt to the way they want to do things.
Oh, and you will also create a climate of fear, mistrust and disloyalty in your workers. Following the example set by management, they will start jumping ship at the slightest hint of a better deal somewhere else.
This is what befell the last company that “laid me off” (even while they had an ad in the paper looking to replace me — which technically isn’t a lay-off but a firing with no stated reason!). It ended up costing them a year of my wages to urge me not to tell of the shady things I knew about them and $100,000+ in the first 2 years because of incompetent people who just looked good on paper and who didn’t know the quirks of our systems and blew things up!. And it started them on a roller coaster ride of hirings, firings, quitting etc that further hampered their profitability.
One of my greatest pleasures was hearing of these things through a highly placed friend who still had dealings with the company. They asked him in desperation if he knew someone who could . . . (and then they named off all the things I used to do). He told them he knew the perfect person for the job and gave them my phone number!
A top priority of just money, (the love of money), makes one little more than a cold heartless bastard.
@griz I’m surprised they didn’t do their due diligence. Contact all businesses. Contact all references. Background check. Social media check. Testing. With all that it’s VERY difficult to hire the wrong employee… but all that costs money…