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I had a boss like that. One time he told me "In a bacon and eggs dish, the hen contributes but the pig really gets involved. I want all my team to be pigs". I

• maxfurman 2y ago
  He used a metaphor in which he slaughters his entire team? Sheesh, talk about making the subtext text.
  • AlecSchueler 2y ago
    The metaphor also breaks down because if you're trying to make a bacon and eggs dish without any hens then you end up eating bacon with bacon instead.
    • cgannett 2y ago
      I dont think the metaphor breaks down at all I just think it is saying things that while very true are not meant to be communicated to the pigs and hens.
      • AlecSchueler 2y ago
        A bacon and eggs dish without eggs isn't a bacon and eggs dish, so in the metaphor the business fails to achieve its stated aim.
• josefritzishere 2y ago
  Cannibalistic metaphors were not on my red flag list but they are now.
• osigurdson 2y ago
  In reality, that boss probably was just repeating something that he heard - hoping that his boss would like how it sounds. I recall similar parables in early 00's agile. It is a lot easier to say things like this than come up with an actual strategy.
  • ethbr1 2y ago
    Folksy management sayings inevitably compel me to innocently ask inconvenient questions. Because either (a) the person using them really knows their shit and will have a response or (b) they're just full of shit.
    • osigurdson 2y ago
      Usually the response is either to just double down "this is the most important thing that we do" (with no further explanation), or anger: "Idiot! How can you not possibly know what I mean to be committed like the pig in my story".
  • sennalen 2y ago
    The context I have heard the ham and eggs analogy was for certain scrum rituals that were supposed to be for ham people only (ie, excluding people without a stake in the outcome). Someone probably told this boss to butt out of a meeting.
    • osigurdson 2y ago
      It is all dumb stuff, imo. 00's agile got away with a lot of stupid things - usually with the implicit aim of increasing the number of billable devs (or to sell conference tickets or books. It was almost like, the more absurd, the better. There are still remnants of that but, thankfully, it has mostly disappeared.
• ryandrake 2y ago
  I had a [founder] boss who would say to his team "I want everyone on the team to act as though they owned the business!" He and his family owned 100% of the equity.
  • clown_strike 2y ago
    "We're like a family here!" So we can look forward to being asked for many unpaid favors, and a spate of domestic violence around the holidays.
  • zimpenfish 2y ago
    > "I want everyone on the team to act as though they owned the business!" "Ok, then I'll make a decision about..." "NOT LIKE THAT"
• xboxnolifes 2y ago
  Weird metaphor. Your boss wanted to make bacon and eggs without any eggs.