Click here to listen to "The Death of Craftmanship" Derisive comments didn't work;
The old man just kept on working,
As if he never heard the many scathing remarks.
And the more that he produced
The better and quicker he became,
Which only served to worsen the problem.
His perspective, although narrow, was enhanced by concentration,
And tempered with the wisdom and work ethic of the "Old-School."
While contributing significantly to his job.
This only deepened the jealousy and enmity of his Supervisor.
Then, trumped-up accusations of failures,
Assignments missed that were never initially communicated,
And false blaming of inadequacies finally found their mark.
In his vulnerability the old man kept silent,.
Kept on working, perplexed, but harder and longer than ever.
Thinking he would surely break,
The Supervisor piled on more and more work.
The old man worked even harder and longer
And was criticized more and more.
Then one day the old man's body gave up,
And he had a massive heart attack.
Without the old man's production
The work stacked up.
The Supervisor redistributed the load to other workers,
But they were not familiar with the duties or used to the load.
Project after project missed important deadlines,
And the quality of the work that was performed was very poor.
Many clients were lost, whole accounts closed down,
And new business could not be found anywhere.
Eventually the business failed,
Dying as certain a death as had the old man,
For the same reasons, and by the same hand.