Why do we get laid off? A complicated corporate work culture ....

Every morning a small and simple ant arrived at work very early. Without wasting any time he started his work immediately. He produced a lot and was very happy about his contribution to his company :).

The Chief of the company, a lion, was surprised to see that the ant was working without supervision. He thought to himself: "If the ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn't he produce more if had a supervisor?"

So the lion recruited a cockroach who had "extensive experience" as a supervisor and who was "famous" for writing excellent reports. Now what did the roach do?

His first and foremost decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system. Afterall he needed that to track the sole employee of the company, an ant who arrived to work before anybody else did!


Next he needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports.


And last but not the least he recurited a spider, who managed the archives and monitored phone calls. After all the roach needed to see where the ant whiled away time .....

The lion was delighted with the cockroach's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyze trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board meetings.

Now the roach had to buy a new computer and a laser printer to produce trendy reports.

Not only that, he recruited a fly to manage the IT (Information Technology) "Department" ....

The ant who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of his time ......

The Chief (who else but King 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 a cicada, whose first decision was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his office.

He also needed a computer and a PA (Personal Assistant). So he brought them over from his previous department. They would increase productivity and the bottom line by helping him to prepare a "Work and Budget Control Strategic Optimization Plan."

Around this time, the cicada convinced The Chief, the lion, of the absolute necessity to start a climactic study of the environment!

The "department" where the ant works is now a sad place where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset ....

The Chief, the lion, reviewed the charges for running the ant's department and found out that the production was much less than before.

So he recruited an owl, who was a prestigious and renowned consultant, to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

The owl spent three months 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 he showed: "Lack of motivation and had a negative attitude."

We see similar incidents happening in corporate America on a regular basis. Often the CEOs walk away with fat severance packages to the tune of millions of dollars. But the common man on the lowest echelon of the food chain and whose blood and sweat runs the company, is simply handed a pink slip!

What are your views on simplifying corporate America's work culture so that the common man who is also a sincere tax payer gets better treatment? Or is it too complicated and beyond repair? In that case should we go back to America's heritage of small business owners playing a big part in the economy instead of a few big corporate houses running the show?

We are looking forward towards your responses :).

Note: The characters in this fable are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or facts within a coporation is pure coincidence.

Reference(s): Adapted from a Portuguese story by PR. Obrigado Mario.

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