Say I'm XYZ Corporation's Managing Director for Inter- and Intra-Corporate Information Resource Dissemination. (In other words, I run the mail room.) One day, my assistant, I.M. Blount, returns from lunch to find me fiddling with a new desktop computer.

“Get some Christmas shopping done at lunch?” asks Blount.

I mumble something inaudible.

“I'm thinking of getting my boy one of those, too,” says Blount. “He keeps talking about what a hotshot he's going to be at Space Whackers.”

I chuckle patronizingly “This isn't a toy. This is going to revolutionize our work.”

“Gee,” responds Blount. He pauses, uncertain of what to say next. “You mean we're not going to go around giving people mail from our carts anymore?”

I sigh.

“How many times have we been over this? You're never going to make it up the ladder until you can learn to stop seeing everything so literally. Come take a closer look at this.”

Blount cautiously moves around my desk to where he can see the computer's screen.

"What do you see here?" I ask him.

"Well, it looks like a lot of people's names with funny little squooshed-together abbreviations or codes or something," he ventures.

I shake my head wearily.

"This is our entry into the Information Age."

Blount swallows and doesn't say anything.

"If you'd only take the time to read more of the magazines we deliver around here--Conglomerate Week, Fortunate, any of those--you'd realize that all businesses, everywhere, are getting more technology-intensive. Those that can't keep up are going to fall by the wayside. I don't understand how you can stick your head in the sand while structural change like that goes on all around you."

"I keep meaning to read those magazines," Blount says. "It's just that I'm always too busy delivering the mail."

"You're too much into firefighting mode," I chastise. "Can't see the forest for the trees. Again, not enough management potential. Look at Slicke. Somehow he finds the time to read and prepare for the future."

"But he doesn't deliver more than a couple of pieces of mail a day. Maybe if you could have him help me with some of my load..."

"Now, hold on a minute, I caution him. "You know, that's another area you're going to have to work on, if you want to move up. Spreading blame isn't the way. You've got to learn to be more of a team player."

Blount drops this line of argument, although reluctantly.