Career-Building Blunder: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Sometimes, an intelligent boss will determine that the best candidate for an important job is the one who has just caused a disaster.

 

* In Lee Lightner's ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' [[Space Wolf]] novel ''Sons of Fenris'', when Tor has unwisely led his forces into an ambush, Ragnar chooses him to lead to the attack on a [[Cool Gate|warp portal]], because Tor

* ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]''

** Grand Admiral Thrawn promotes a subordinate who failed to capture Luke's ship with a [[Tractor Beam]]. The subordinate received high praise because he went above and beyond his duty in his efforts, creating new strategies on the fly that, even though they failed, still bespoke top-notch problem-solving skills. (Bonus points for actually taking responsibility for his failure.) The tractor beam operator was then told to work out a way to counter Luke's trick. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|And he did.]]

* ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'': Julius Root is hard on Holly for several reasons, one of them being that she failed once and failed bad, and she must thus be the best to have that one failure be minimal compared to the rest of her actions.

* For Sherlock Holmes, it was 'The Adventure of the Yellow Face.' He was way off the mark, and arrived at the wrong conclusion. Fortunately, the case resolved itself before he could make too big a fool of himself.