I first heard this expression from an Irish friend sometime around mid 2006. It is an expression meaning to turn/convert something good into something bad. Here is a story (based on true events) that is a good example of turning chicken salad into chicken shit.
Sometime around the late 1990s, an American MNC operating a factory in Asia noticed that they are not able to retain their junior operators. They don't seem to have such a problem with their older more experienced operators. Puzzled why that is they hired a consultant to look into the problem. The consultant, having being hired by almost all the companies around that area for very similar reasons, knows the package each are offering and informed this company that their package for their senior operators is above market whilst the package for their junior operators is not competitive. As you would expect, it is recommended that the package for the junior operators be adjusted. The GM of that factory at the time agreed. However, to avoid the senior operator feeling left out in that exercise, this GM also made a small adjustment for the senior operators.
When the new pay package was announced, some senior operators wanted to know why the adjustment to their pay is a lot less than those for junior operators. It felt unfair and that senior operators are not valued. Some senior operators got together and asked the HR director. It is purported that the response these senior operators got from the HR director was "you are old trees and have no more juice." It is also purported that this HR director told these senior operators that "the door is always open if you are not happy!" Unhappy with the response, these senior operators got together and walked off the job! For a couple of weeks, the operators were just wondering around the factory refusing to work and it took the effort of the GM and his direct reports a couple of weeks to get this under control. The good intention of the GM (the chicken salad) was literally turned into chicken shit by the HR director!
It is very easy to turn chicken salad to chicken shit. It takes skills to turn chicken shit into chicken salad!
3 comments:
oGod Good gdoo article.. this could be one of the recent Vinct get scolded so many times.
Thanks,
Trevor
nice once! :)
it indeed takes just One. Little. Minor. screw-up to turn all that vigorously prepared & hard-worked salad into shi*! and the funny thing is, THEN, no one really even looks at all the energy initially invested and harbored into the process...
Waqas Burney.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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