There were two kinds of men in the room, gladiators and scribes.  The gladiators had just come from the arena, still covered with blood and sweat.

The scribes were cool, alert, and energetic.  

Now they were shown the drawings of what had gone on in the arena.  Oddly, the discussion was limited to pictures of faulty fighting.  As the images were shown the scribes would comment sagely “That thrust was rather weak” or “There you could have advanced”.  

The gladiators now and then would try to explain that in the arena there is not time to think of all these things, that blood is slippery and the lions have their own ideas.

The gladiators were now fighting in an arena they did not understand.  The weapons now were not the familiar swords and spears.  The weapons were numbers, words, and rhetoric.  

As to these weapons, the gladiators were no match for the scribes.

The scribes retired to the safety of the stadium seats.  The gladiators returned to the hot, hostile floor of the arena.  They knew they had suffered at the hands of the glib, clever scribes.  

But they remained convinced that no one but a gladiator understands the problems of fighting in the arena.

In my arena (yours too), the Scribes like to think they are Gladiators.

One day the gladiators will become the masters of te scribes.  The gladiators will develope a disgust for the scribes and rule them.

This is one ot the main reasons the founding fathers frowned on a standing army and relied instead on a Militia.

That sounds alot like what I deal with on my job.  "Why did you do this?"  What didn't you remember to do that?"  "What happened with this or that?"  I love the fact that what I do in the span of seconds or minutes with little time to make decisions can be picked apart by a SNCO who was fast asleep in his bed with his family at home when I was out in the night making things happen.  I tell you the scribes are my leadership and I'm one of the gladiators.  

I am so glad that I'll soon be hanging the gun belt up for good and gladly take my wooden sword for my troubles.  I hate being monday morning quaterbacked.

Quoted: In my arena (yours too), the Scribes like to think they are Gladiators.

That sounds familiar way to familiar,Scribes like to think that they have Mensa Intellect


go push your Pencil Moron

Quoted: In my arena (yours too), the Scribes like to think they are Gladiators.

Yeah and way too in love with technology.  Some shit can only be solved with manpower and boots on the ground.  The tech shit looks cool on their staff meeting slides though

ETA:  During my last tour in the shitbox, we came up with a new name for the "scribes".  We called them Craftsmen(named after the TOOL!)  "Sir you are an amazing craftsman when it comes to the job."  They would never know we had just called them a tool to their face.  Pretty funny shit.

I'd rather be one of the gladiators owners or one of the prison guards watching them, then if a scribe pissed me off, I'd just throw him in cell with the rest of the gladiators..

John P..

I am Spartacus!  

Quoted: Yeah and way too in love with technology.  Some shit can only be solved with manpower and boots on the ground.  The tech shit looks cool on their staff meeting slides though

You ain't lyin. Powerpoint runs our Department.

I dig your Craftsman idea.

You can even give them specific names like Makita, DeWalt, etc. , to differentiate between the tools.

Wonder how many are Harbor Freight Tools?