Every day the little Ant arrived early at her workplace and started working. She produced, and she was content.
The boss — the Lion — was surprised that the ant worked without supervision. “If she produces so much without supervision, couldn’t she produce even more if she were under someone’s supervision?” he wondered.
So he hired a Cockroach who had great experience as a supervisor and wrote wonderful reports. The Cockroach’s first decision was to introduce access control for the Ant. Then the Cockroach needed a secretary to help with the reports, and she hired a Spider who, besides the archives, also handled monitoring of telephone calls.
The Lion was enchanted by the Cockroach’s reports and asked her for production charts and trend analysis as well, to present at meetings specially organised for the purpose. For that purpose the Cockroach was bought a computer and a laser printer, and a Fly was hired to run the IT department.
The Ant, until recently productive and cheerful, was in despair at so much paperwork and so many meetings, which took up all her time!
The Lion concluded that the time had come to create a post of head of the sector where the Ant worked. The post was given to a Cricket, whose first decision was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his desk. The new head, the Cricket, also needed a computer and an assistant (whom he brought from his previous job) to help him prepare the strategic plan for work optimisation and to control the budget of the sector where the Ant worked — who by this stage was no longer enjoying herself and grew angrier with every passing day.
At the same time the Cricket convinced the Lion of the absolute necessity of an environmental study. After reviewing the workload, the Lion noticed that the Ant’s sector was no longer producing as much as before. He hired an Owl — a well-known consultant — to carry out an audit and propose solutions.
The Owl spent three months in the offices and produced an enormous report, in several volumes, with the conclusion: “There is too much staff in this enterprise.” Guess whom the Lion fired first? The Ant, of course, because she “shows a lack of motivation and conflictual behaviour.”
/from the net/