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The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Once upon a time in a tranquil village nestled amidst rolling hills, there lived a young shepherd boy. His task was to watch over the village's flock of sheep as they grazed in the nearby meadows.
The boy was mischievous and easily bored. To entertain himself, whenever he felt the monotony of his job weighing down on him, he would shout, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is attacking the sheep!"
Hearing the boy's frantic cries, the villagers would drop everything and rush to the meadow with their tools and weapons, ready to fend off the feared predator. But every time they arrived, they found the boy laughing, pointing at the unsuspecting sheep.
The villagers would shake their heads at his antics and begrudgingly return to their lives. The boy found the attention exhilarating, and so day after day, he repeated his prank for an entire week.
One fateful afternoon about a week later, a real wolf came lurking in the distance, drawn by the scent of the sheep. Terrified, the boy screamed, "Wolf! Wolf! Please, someone help! The wolf is attacking the sheep for real this time!"
But this time, the villagers, tired of the tricks, chose to ignore him.
Tragically, no one came to the boy's aid, and so the wolf pounced on the defenseless sheep, scattering them in all directions. When the villagers realized their situation, they rushed to the meadow, but it was too late. The wolf had devoured several sheep and sent the rest away in a frenzy.
Moral of the story: A reputation of being dishonest will leave you without help when you truly need it.
The Director Who Cried Critical: A Modern Day Fable
Once upon a time there was a director of technology operations named Mr. Wolf. He had a habit of submitting any of his objectives as "critical priority" whether it was truly urgent or not. He loved that whenever he did this, his requests would always be at or near the top of what the teams were working on.
Whenever Mr. Wolf declared a new task as "critical," the teams would scramble to prioritize it, often meaning they would drop other things they were working on; forcing them to context switch and often do a lot of rework to catch back up. As a result of Mr. Wolf's antics, the teams were never able to focus on one thing for long and had no idea what was the real, singular, top priority.
One day a genuine critical issue arose with a security breach. The teams rolled their eyes and groaned as Mr. Wolf submitted the request as "Critical Priority". There were already 14 critical priority items in progress already amongst them. This issue was assumed to be yet another of Mr. Wolf's newest fire of the week.
In the following hours, not one single team was investigating the issue. A massive data breach occurred. Clients were frustrated, and the company's reputation suffered. Mr. Wolf wanted to know who was to blame! The fingers all pointed back at him.
In the aftermath, Mr. Wolf realized the folly of labeling everything as "critical" and the detrimental impact it had on the team's ability to prioritize and respond to true emergencies. From that day forward, he adopted a more discerning approach to task prioritization, reserving the label "critical" for only the most urgent and essential matters.
Moral of the Story: Critical loses it's meaning when it's applied too frequently.
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