There was a king who had 10 wild dogs. Once, one of the ministers made a mistake. The king ordered for the minister to be thrown to the dogs. So the minister said, “I served you 10 years and you do this? Please give me 10 days before you throw me in with those dogs!”
So the king agreed. In those 10 days the minister went to the guard that was guarding the dogs and told him he wants to serve the dogs for the next 10 days. The guard was baffled but he agreed. So the minister started feeding the dogs, cleaning them, washing them and providing all sorts of comfort to them.
When the 10 days were up, the king ordered that the minister be thrown into the dogs as his punishment. But when he was thrown in, everyone was amazed at what they saw. They saw the dogs licking the feet of the minister!
So the king, baffled at what he saw, asked, ” what happened to my dogs?!” The minister then said, “I served the dogs for 10 days and they didn’t forget my service, yet I served you for 10 years and you forgot all on the first mistake!”
The king realized he made a huge mistake with his minister.
He apologised to the minister and reinstated him to his position.” Adopted from 1,001 nights.
There are many variations of this short story (some more comical than others), but what this version of the end should highlight is that it can be easy to forget a whole lot of productive and good work by a colleague, employer or employee on the basis of one mistake.
All parties should make a conscious effort to better improve the harmony in the workplace by looking at better solutions (which, perhaps do not involve wild dogs – unless absolutely necessary ;)) than focusing on the problem or issue.
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