Leading from the Middle

Caption: Yesterday, Elvis would have been 80. His music lives on.

“A MAN had two dogs: a Hound, trained to assist him in his sports, and a Housedog, taught to watch the house. When he returned home after a good day's sport, he always gave the Housedog a large share of his spoil. The Hound, feeling much aggrieved at this, reproached his companion, saying, ‘It is very hard to have all this labor, while you, who do not assist in the chase, luxuriate on the fruits of my exertions.’ The Housedog replied, ‘Do not blame me, my friend, but find fault with the master, who has not taught me to labor, but to depend for subsistence on the labor of others.’”

“Children are not to be blamed for the faults of their parents.”

Perhaps, but in this case the blameless child (the dog) knows he should be doing at least something – maybe sharing his bounty with the hard-working hound. But, the housedog has lost his independence, he’s become a smugly satisfied ward of the Man.
On the job, there’s the boss who claims credit for work done by subordinates, never mentioning their names. Only when there’s blaming does he get specific: “You ain’t nothin but a hound-dog!”


*Source: AESOP’S FABLES By Aesop Translated by George Fyler Townsend (probably from this edition): “Three hundred and fifty Aesop’s fables”. Chicago, Belford, Clarke & Co., 1886.
Available at the Gutenberg Project.


@Copyright John Lubans 2015

 

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