“Do you know about Dale, the guy who presses the button?” Carson said to Mayor Block. The mayor and the aide were eating lunch.
“Yeah, Dale sits at that desk on the twelfth floor,” Mayor Block said, eating a BLT. “There is a big red button on his desk. As soon as the button lights up, he presses the button. That’s his job. The button only works from 9-5 weekdays with a half-hour break at noon for lunch. Why do you ask?”
“We should fire Dale,” Carson said while eating a club sandwich.
“But who will press the button?”
“We don’t need anyone to press the button. We should stop having someone press the button.”
The mayor looked at Carson. “You don’t know what the button does, do you?”
“No, do you?”
“Of course not, but don’t you think we should figure out what the button does before we fire Dale?”
“I can figure it out,” Carson said. “What happens if it’s not doing anything?”
“We shut it off,” the mayor said.
“And what if the button does something important?”
“We keep Dale.”
“And what if we can automate it?”
“We automate it.”
“You want to fire Dale?” Carson asked.
“You just wanted to fire Dale. It’s not Dale’s fault that his job is to press a button. We’ll reassign him.”
The two looked at each other for a second and at the same time decided on Dale’s next job, “Parking tickets.”