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Found this while trying to look up info on just what the preferred "standard Midwestern American" accent currently consists of.....seems to me the observation can apply to a lot more than just employee situations:
Riding a Dead Horse:
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Modern organizations (education, government, military, etc.) often employ a whole range of far more advanced strategies, such as:
* Buying a stronger whip.
* Changing riders.
* Threatening the horse with termination.
* Appointing a committee to study the horse.
* Arranging to visit other countries to see how others
ride dead horses.
* Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be
included.
* Re-classifying the dead horse as ‘Living Impaired’.
* Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
* Harnessing several dead horses together to increase
the speed.
* Providing additional funding/or training to increase
the dead horse’s performance.
* Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders
would improve the dead horse’s performance.
* Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be
fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and
therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom
line of the economy than do some other horses.
* Re-writing the expected performance requirements for
all horses.
* Promoting the dead horse to a management position.
I think "Re-writing the expected performance requirements for all horses" applies to the situation of the typical human animal burned in a courtship/mating experience, particularly if they continue trying to ride dead horses while they've convinced themself that live horses do not exist and "horse" automatically denotes "dead horse".
Or "deadbeat" instead of a dead beast......but yeah, you get the general idea.
As opposed to the philosophy of falling off a horse and getting back on, in which "horse" really denotes the entire field of both horses and horse-riding, whether individual or aggregate.....a similar though more nostalgic angle is that ''tis better to have ridden and fallen off than never ridden at all.'
And then there are those who stand in the middle of the battlefield imploring "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" but have as of yet no idea how to deal with the reality of that for which they're willing to trade their whole integrity.
Yeah, yeah, I just had to drag Shakespeare into this.....and Tennyson......:P
Riding a Dead Horse:
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Modern organizations (education, government, military, etc.) often employ a whole range of far more advanced strategies, such as:
* Buying a stronger whip.
* Changing riders.
* Threatening the horse with termination.
* Appointing a committee to study the horse.
* Arranging to visit other countries to see how others
ride dead horses.
* Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be
included.
* Re-classifying the dead horse as ‘Living Impaired’.
* Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
* Harnessing several dead horses together to increase
the speed.
* Providing additional funding/or training to increase
the dead horse’s performance.
* Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders
would improve the dead horse’s performance.
* Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be
fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and
therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom
line of the economy than do some other horses.
* Re-writing the expected performance requirements for
all horses.
* Promoting the dead horse to a management position.
I think "Re-writing the expected performance requirements for all horses" applies to the situation of the typical human animal burned in a courtship/mating experience, particularly if they continue trying to ride dead horses while they've convinced themself that live horses do not exist and "horse" automatically denotes "dead horse".
Or "deadbeat" instead of a dead beast......but yeah, you get the general idea.
As opposed to the philosophy of falling off a horse and getting back on, in which "horse" really denotes the entire field of both horses and horse-riding, whether individual or aggregate.....a similar though more nostalgic angle is that ''tis better to have ridden and fallen off than never ridden at all.'
And then there are those who stand in the middle of the battlefield imploring "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" but have as of yet no idea how to deal with the reality of that for which they're willing to trade their whole integrity.
Yeah, yeah, I just had to drag Shakespeare into this.....and Tennyson......:P
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