Hey I'm a wagon consultant and I'll show you what you're doing wrong for a small fee
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Eh, sometimes the corporate solution is to add more horses, just not horses that are immediately (or sometimes ever) useful. Horses that have maybe never pulled a cart before or have only ever pulled carts solo. Horses that need a month of training to be able to contribute meaningfully, often through no fault of their own, but are told that this cart needs to be pulled out of the mud in two weeks. And then when the original horses tell the cart driver that it's going to take a month to get everyone up to speed, they completely miss the point and ask how many more horses we need.
A hundred horses, all pulling in different directions.
It'd still work, due to brownian horse motion
That's the employees sanity in the middle.
Not accurate.
The corporate solution is to add more carts to whip the whipping boy, lest he not whip the horse enough.
If this is the "will continue until morale improves" meme, I laughed and then got pissed off, because that line is basically corporate speak for doing nothing. Stick a morale workshop on a burning ship and call it a strategy, sure.
Honestly, it nails how hollow some leadership moves feel. Band aid after band aid while the real problems rot in the hull. Someone actually fix things or stop pretending pep talks count as effort.
Still, good meme. Perfect caption for the thousand tiny failures we pretend are "temporary." Keep em coming.
Now the corporate solution is to try and replace the horse with AI and sink further
Almost. The corporate solution nowadays is for the guy who owns all of the carts to replace the horses with AI, fire half of the drivers, then demand the remaining drivers take two carts every trip.
Sounds like a train to me.
It always gets there
Job security FTW!
To clarify, that means "For The Whips". 🤪
When there's a whip, there's a way
What we hoped for:
What we got:
Where does one buy a good quality pair of assless chaps in 2025?
Corporates: well yeah, enough whipping should make the horse move, and more whips should make it move faster than one whip, so what’s the problem? Also, make sure the bottled water in the chariot is Essentia because I own stock in Nestle.
Alternate corporate solution: they add carts, equipped with driver and horses. They all share the mud equally, and the managers wonder why they’re still not progressing.
The mythical man-month.
You could also get out of the wagon and help pull, maybe unload the wagon too
Having ridden in Ye Olde Wagons before, this is actually what you should do.
Get out, unload whatever weight you can, and make the wagon as light as possible, then you try to get it out by unburying the wheels and putting something hard for them to roll on.
we had 2x10 boards (and a few small 2x4 chunks) in the wagon and shovels, as the route we were using was through cow pastures and corn fields.
The new solution has a chatbot delving into whipping strategy and toadying the whippers.
Devil's advocacy here:
Employees are the biggest expense of about any business. Won't line it all out, but having worked in a payroll firm, the business' actual cost is nearly double your hourly wage, especially for lower skilled/paid employees. You make $15, they're paying $25. (worker's comp, unemployment insurance, taxes, payroll overhead, on and on)
If you hire to meet demanding times, what do you do with those people when business slows? Yes, the monster companies have no issue laying off thousands, but very few of us actually work for such outfits. Small business is loathe to have to layoff. During COVID our CEO was more than a little emotional when he pulled us all into Zoom to explain. Predictably, HR was totally cold blooded.
Speaking of, from a purely cold-blooded perspective, layoffs can (almost always?) crank up state unemployment insurance rates. In any case, here in Florida they have to pay $7,200 out during an employee's first year. (7-yo info, probably higher now.)
Worker's comp insurance companies don't like to see turnover, bad sign you're a safety minded employer when you constantly have new people. And whoever is handling your payroll is going to factor turnover into your rates.
And I haven't even touched on the loss of tribal knowledge, moral and future turnover when you enact layoffs. Training and any required certifications are another factor. Hell, even Lowe's put me through 2 weeks of computer classes before I hit the floor to sling mulch.
Yes, many dipshit companies hire and fire with no regard to what all I just said. They don't often do well, especially in the long run. Our local Lowe's vs. Home Depot is a great example. The Lowe's is well run, employees are fairly happy, many have been there for years and years, managers from the top down worked their way up. They do loads of business. Local Home Depot employees seem miserable and as if they're brand new. Their parking lot is empty compared to Lowe's.
tl;dr: Don't hire more than you absolutely have to. Initial costs are high and there's no good path to layoff or fire people.
(This is an American perspective. European companies operate under even higher costs and tighter restrictions.)
All these expenses need to be kept in context. Sure, they're on net paying $25 for your $15 of wage, but in turn they're earning $40, $50, $100, or $200 off of your labor depending on just what kind of industry you're in.
You see, a sane person would read all of that and question why a company would gleefully erase hundreds of jobs after years and years of productive employment.
You? You seem to want to defend the cutting of the "expense", regardless of how much initial investment went in.
After all, you want to be, "Devil's advocate", do you not?
The devil doesn't need more advocates.
Perhaps we should be afraid of learning new things and be happy in our echo chambers? How very conservative of you!
Sure thing, buddy.