Good ol’ Boy
// September 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Thoughts
Cronyism. How close to home does this hit?
A manager has a good friend outside of work who wants to hop ship at his current job position, (even in the same company, for instance) and come fill a recently opened position at the manager’s department. He’s given preferential treatment and edges ahead of several other applicants (regardless of qualification) and pegs the job.
How about this one… Someone performs a job function, and performs it dismally. This person (“A”) is managed by another individual who just happens to be buddy-buddy with that person (“A”), and turns a blind eye at his or her ineptitude. Maybe the boss even promotes their buddy to a higher ranking position?
And another… The government of a country has officials that appoint constituents to office in the guise of “fair appointment”…
I have recently observed a variation of this abuse, in the form of an individual being punished who just happens to not be part of the core machine. This person is a sentient program embedded in the collective drone mentality. The punishment seemed to be administered because of a questionable interaction. Ultimately, the issue was resolved before the punishment, and whatever crisis may have arisen was avoided but this individual was punished anyway whereas I guarantee there are others who wouldn’t have been. The boat has just… already been rocked. Yes, there is a history there that really is irrelevant to the situation. This person didn’t even know of the protocol that was already established to address the situation, they were uneducated about the specifics at no fault of theirs! Perfectly capable of handling the situation, yet didn’t know one piece of information. Guess what? They got the information in short order by making contact with someone who did know! Reasonable right? I think so. Regardless of the nature of the interaction (which by the way, was initiated by another individual).
As a third party looking in on the situation, this perturbs me. Where is the transparency? Why are some people treated preferentially? Where is the meritocracy which makes productive organizations, think tanks, businesses, thrive? It’s like a crab with an IQ of 160 catching an under current and washing up to the beach and getting wedged in the sand upside down, only to be laughed at by all of the good ol’ boy crabs wandering in and out of the water past him, then he’s picked up by a person, boiled and eaten for good measure. All the other crabs needed to do was “give him a claw”.
Hopefully that analogy makes sense. It does in my head. Then again, so many things do, that apparently aren’t sensible in real life.
So tell me, dear reader, when is Cronyism a reasonable route in regards to business interaction? And, I don’t want to hear “Well what if my buddy is qualified?” because you are considering qualifications, which is merit related.
