No One Is Priceless

No one is priceless. The lesson of this story is how dangerous it is to become so obsessed with one’s goals that it excludes other people and isolates itself from the world.

This is the story of Andrew, who was an exceptionally talented accountant. Andrew was a brilliant and ambitious young man who wanted to be successful and invaluable in his work. He graduated from college with good grades, so his professors gave him his recommendations as he aspired to work for a prestigious company. He started working there as an assistant.

Andrew was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. He wanted to be completely immersed in everything the company did. His goal was to know everything and be so efficient that the company considered him a necessity.  Therefore, he gave his all every day.

Andrew’s work was really high quality. Therefore, his boss decided to give him a promotion.  Just like in his previous role, Andrew succeeded in every way. This time he worked even harder. When he wasn’t working, he read work-related things or tried new strategies to be even more effective. His co-workers respected him, and he did very well.

No one is priceless: a new responsibility

The story goes that everyone talked about how great an employee young Andrew was. Just two years later, the company’s board decided to promote him as CFO. There could be no one better than Andrew for this role.

When Andrew took up his new leadership role, he became even more obsessed with perfection. Instead of eight hours, he started working 12 hours a day. He began to have unexplained fears. For some reason, he believed that all other employees wanted his job. The CFO’s salary was high and the position was really respected. Andrew began to doubt everyone.

As a manager, he had to lead other employees. According to the story, however, Andrew became very skeptical. He was not a good leader, he did not provide much guidance and did not give good guidance. In fact, he gave as little guidance as possible. He thought that if he gave too much information to his employees, one of them might end up knowing as much as he did and try to take his job. It didn’t take long before no one asked him anything anymore.

No one is priceless: an unexpected change

The story goes that with Andrew, everything went well for a few years. One day, the president of the company asked him to train John. John was a young man hired by the company to assist Andrew. They thought Andrew needed help because he seemed to be drowning in his workload. Of course, Andrew was not happy.

Andrew did the same with John as he did with all the other employees: he gave him very little guidance. John noticed it, but didn’t bring it up. Instead, he set out to figure things out for himself. He decided to learn from people working in other departments. He asked around and was able to gather enough information to fill the gaps in his education.

Five years later, the board announced that it was looking for a new CEO. Andrew, who was responsible for many important things, thought his great moment had finally arrived. The board decided on two potential candidates: Andrew and John.

The moral of the story

To everyone’s surprise, the board elected John as the new CEO. Andrew couldn’t believe it. No other employee was as efficient as he was. He did not understand how he had lost. The board explained that he was invaluable as CFO. No one could do this job better than he did, so he should stay in that job.

The finance team was later invited to a training seminar. Andrew wanted to go, but didn’t have time because of his heavy workload.

It was unfortunate for Andrew that other employees learned to use the company’s new computer programs during the workshop. Because he did not go to education, he did not learn to use the programs, and his ignorance quickly came to the fore. He could not adapt to the changes.

In addition, the new software handled many things that Andrew had specialized in. Andrew’s skills were outdated. Due to his many years of service, the government did not dismiss Andrew, but appointed him to another position.

Andrew’s story teaches us that obsessions can blind you and often make your worst fears come true.