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Subject:Re: JOB POSTING: Technical Marketing Writer From:"Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 2 May 1997 09:33:05 -0700
At 10:39 AM 5/2/97 +1000, John H McPhillips wrote:
> I can't believe the over reaction to one comment about being a "top
>performer" in a job requirement. Let people be "top performers" if they
>want to, but remember that in a big organization, a "top performer" can't
>always be one if they are let down by bad management decisions and
>unresolved conflict. If a manager is willing to back up his/her people when
>the chips are down, that's when a top performance really means something.
>Teamwork needs trust, not just head to head competition between workers.
>
In a previous contribution to this thread, I revised parts of the original
job posting that gave offense ("top performer" became "average performer,"
for example) and noted that Richard Nixon had justified the nomination of a
judicial nonentity to the Supreme Court by saying that mediocrity had a
place in the highest court in the land. I knew I was wrong when I posted,
but I expected someone to correct me. It never happened.
I now recall (they're right - memory *is* the second thing to go) that it
was Roman Hruska, the Republican Senator from Nebraska, who delivered that
eloquent defense of mediocrity. I could have let it slide, but to keep in
the spirit of this list I had to flame myself.
--Wayne Douglass
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