Pragmatic Outsourcing

I do not know how many times one of my managers or I said something like “Darn employees… Can’t live with them, can’t live without them either…” Almost all issues one faces in management career come from employees, well, very much all the issues are solved by employees as well. Every time when you deal with yet another personnel issue you throw your hands in air asking why it can’t be simple at least once in a while. Well whether you want it or not Murphy rules and if everything appears going well that only means that you are missing something.

For some reason (premonition?) I was thinking about this the Saturday before Thanksgiving week. The thought was so strong and persistent that I decided to sit down with my notebook and take a quick walk through the list of ongoing projects and open issues. The timing, from some twisted standpoint, was perfect – approaching long weekend, many people on vacation traveling, end of month, oncoming deadline for a number of high visibility projects. Nope, neither the list of projects nor the list of open issues, nor any other list I looked over gave me any reason for extra concern. Relived to the point of complacency I went on with my usual weekend chores.

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