Higgenbotham wrote: > How Corporations Make Decisions (Organizational Stupidity)
> Person A is told to put out the trash. For some unknown reason
> which is no fault of Person A whatsoever, the trash collector
> neglects to pick up the trash. The supervisor of Person A assumes
> Person A did something wrong and the next night tells Person B to
> put out the trash. Person B puts out the trash and the trash gets
> picked up as normal. Person B is hailed as a hero (after all, the
> trash was really piling up) and the one with the magic touch when
> it comes to getting trash collected. Person B is now a trash
> collection expert while Person A is labelled as clueless by
> management when it comes to the subject of trash.
Person A, who is on a team of programmers developing a critical air
traffic control software product, adds error-checking code to the
product so that it will handle bad input data gracefully, rather than
simply crashing. Person B does not want Person A to get credit for
error-checking code, and so deletes that code. The supervisor has no
clue about coding, or why error-checking is even necessary, and Person
B tells the supervisor that Person A was adding erroneous code to the
product. The supervisor, who has no idea what's going on, decides to
side with Person B, and Person A is labeled as incompetent and later
fired. Meanwhile, the product is released with no error checking, and
it crashes in the field.
Company A is hired to develop a web site. Company B is hired to
oversee Company A. Company A is totally incompetent, and is unable to
meet the specifications, and fabricates a test to justify further
funding. A whistleblower in Company B refuses to sign off on the
fabricated test. His supervisor at Company B signs off on the test
himself, and fires the whistleblower. Funding continues to flow to
both Company A and Company B. Nobody knows what's going on until
October 1, 2013, when the web site fails to work.
