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    Aesop Updated
    Aesop Updated
    Aesop Updated
    Ebook93 pages3 hours

    Aesop Updated

    By Barry Daniels

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    About this ebook

    Aesop's works aren't really outdated, but he wrote for a simpler time. He never had to deal with a cranky computer, a politically correct moron, a suffocating committee meeting, a manager who could not manage or a leader who has no idea how to lead. For those of us who do, or did, or one day might, here are fourteen fables which are more appropriate to living and working in the Third Millennium.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarry Daniels
    Release dateAug 8, 2009
    ISBN9781465956729
    Aesop Updated
    Author

    Barry Daniels

    Barry Daniels is a retired Civil Servant now living in a converted Boatyard on the shores of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. His last position was Director of Education and Training for a Federal Government Department of 13,000 employees. His modern-day fables ('Aesop Updated') draw on forty years of management experience, fifteen of these at a Senior Executive level. 'Beautiful Dreamer' draws on Barry's lifelong interest in the nature and meaning of dreams.

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      Book preview

      Aesop Updated - Barry Daniels

      AESOP UPDATED

      Fables for the Third Millennium

      By Barry Daniels

      Copyright © 2009 by Barry Daniels

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of thepublisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Well, not really updated, since Aesop’s originals are timeless, and as relevant today as they were centuries ago. The Fox continues to see the grapes as sour when he can’t reach them, and no doubt he always will.

      But Aesop never worked in a thirty story office building or a twenty level office hierarchy, and never had to deal with a recalcitrant computer or a belligerent boss. So for those of us who do, or did, or one day might, here are fables about folk who coped with some of these modern aspects of life.

      Aesop drew his morals from life; I drew mine from four decades of working for a living, thirty years as a Federal Bureaucrat in Ottawa, (fifteen as a first level Senior Executive). I know that many people would say that life and federal bureaucracy have little, if anything, in common, but I believe that they share, amongst other things, bungled messages, suffocating committees, politically correct morons, managers who cannot manage and leaders who don’t know how to lead.

      I hope you will find them entertaining.

      I hope you will find them useful.

      Barry Daniels

      Nova Scotia

      August 2009

      THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FOLAME BEETLE

      A Fable for the Third Millennium

      In the spring of 1927 an entomological expedition to the Amazon River Basin brought back samples of a previously unknown insect, which they found in large numbers along the river banks close to the river’s source. Experts were at a loss to explain how an insect present in such large quantities had not previously been reported or identified. The large, multicolored beetle, named for the team’s leader, entomologist Sir Edmund Follame, was a beautiful creature, having a carapace which resembled mother-of-pearl in its subtle shades and in its luminescence. Sunlight falling on the shell was reflected as though from some precious stone.

      The beetles were of particular interest to entomologists of the era due to their unique foraging process. One insect, normally the largest and strongest of the group, would take the lead and become responsible for locating food. In order to be able to eat while traveling the insects had evolved a singular physiology; the antennae of each beetle were constructed so as to connect with and lock onto the rear legs of the beetle in front. In this way individual insects did not even have to look where they were going, and could concentrate on eating. Long lines of foraging insects would march through the jungle in a way which inspired one explorer to remark: It was as though a diamond necklace were moving through the forest, catching those rays of sunlight which found their way through the canopy in a most amazing and delightful display. Lines of several hundred meters in length were common, and chains of up to half a kilometer were not unknown.

      And then, suddenly, they were gone. While expeditions in ’29 and ’30 reported large colonies of Follame Beetles wandering in lengthy procession along the banks of the Amazon, the 1931 party was stunned to discover that the insects were nowhere to be found. The discovery of exoskeletal remains later that year explained what had happened to the beetles but not why. The shells formed a huge circle, over a kilometer in diameter, along jungle trails several kilometers west of the river.

      The scientific community was baffled, and while various theories were examined and discarded, it fell to the noted entomologist Ivor Bindair-Dundat to produce the now generally accepted theory to account for the unfortunate demise of the Follame. Dundat had noticed from his observations of the beetle in previous years that the foraging lines were becoming fewer in number but were much longer. This was the result of the leading beetle of one line coming upon the end unit of another line and joining onto it. Ultimately this had resulted in the entire population of Follame beetles becoming joined together in a single line of immense length. This situation could probably have continued for some time except that, purely by chance, the leading beetle came into contact with the tail end of its own line and instinctively joined it. Bindair-Dundat speculated that after two or three circuits of the same area all available food had been taken, and the circle of beetles probably moved faster and faster in its search for food until the weaker members of the line perished from starvation. The dead insects unfortunately maintained their linkage, fore and aft, and the chain remained unbroken. While dead beetles could be carried by the line up to a certain point it could not continue indefinitely. Movement of the line finally ground to a halt, and the remaining beetles starved to death while locked into place in the motionless chain.

      Bindair-Dundat was widely quoted as saying: It saddens me greatly to think that if only one beetle had managed to break away from the circle the entire population could have been saved from extinction.

      Don’t be a Follame Beetle! Never mistake Activity for Accomplishment. ‘ Moving’ is not necessarily ‘Going Somewhere’. And if you’re going nowhere, running will not get you there any faster.

      * * *

      THE MONASTERY AT ESRA

      A Fable for the Third Millennium

      On the day after his fifty-fifth birthday King Ethelbert awoke with a splitting headache and a sour stomach, which is to say, as usual, and in his normal foul temper. As he returned reluctantly to the waking world the king recalled with distaste the problems which had haunted him throughout the restless night and which would no doubt be waiting for him again this morning. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was probably already outside the royal bedchamber with his rows and columns of figures which he would present with doleful accounts on the precarious situation of the royal coffers. Tradesmen needed to be paid; the Royal Guard had not received a paycheque for close to three months; the roof of the Queen’s Tower was leaking like a sieve. The King’s Chamberlain would be at the man’s shoulder to explain again why even a small increase in taxes would probably push the unhappy peasantry into open rebellion, which would be seen by the King of Ombria, to the north, as an invitation to invade.

      The Queen would be close behind, wailing about the ragged appearance of her

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