breaking tradition
One morning, a recently hired village baker opened the shutters of his shop window. He saw a mob of angry villagers converging on his bakery. They were carrying pitchforks and flaming torches.
The village baker swaggered forth.
"Good morning, villagers!"
A first villager spoke up.
"Good morning, my foot! We have had it with you! We have figured out that you have been diluting your bread flour with sawdust! And gravel! My baby ate some of your bread and got sick. What the devil kind of a baker are you?!"
The baker responded. "A new kind! I am no regular, ordinary village baker. I am here as a disruptor of the old routines. I introduce a new paradigm. The usual rules don't apply to me. You should not even think of me as a 'baker.' I offer an entirely re-envisioned and enhanced baked goods experience."
A second villager roared. "You will experience my boot enhancing your backsides! I figured out that you are the one who has been stealing the planks from my fence and the side of my barn in the night. You use them as firewood for your bread-baking ovens. My livestock got loose, wandered into the river and drowned! We all want you out!"
The baker shot back. "I am teaching you to innovate! I move fast and bring change and surprise. Can't you put aside your respected, traditional ways of doing things? Your 'time tested' methods? Why should you not give up how things have always been done? I am shaking up the incumbent players. You must adapt!"
A third villager spoke up, brandishing a club. "This club is going to adapt the shape of your head! On top of it all, we discovered that, to force us to eat your rotten bread, you have been poisoning our vegetable gardens and secretly chopping down our orchard trees."
A fourth villager chimed in. "Enough! No more talk! Grab the scoundrel!"
A fifth villager: "We will tar and feather him in the village square then run him out of town tied backwards to the underside of our stinkiest donkey!"
The baker shouted: "Wait! I have only one question for you all! Have you ever in the whole history of your village done such a thing before as punishment to any of your bakers?"
The enraged villagers shouted back in unison, "Never!" They closed in.
The baker's yelps could be heard above the mob.
"Stop! You have never done such a thing before in the whole history of your village as punishment to any of your bakers! Why innovate? Why disrupt your old routines with a new paradigm? Why give up how things have always been done? What about your respected traditions? Your time-tested methods? Don't your usual rules apply to me? Think of me as just a regular, ordinary village baker! Hey! Help! Put me down!!"
posted by TiR at 7:01 AM
