History Main / CareerBuildingBlunder

* In DifferentlyMorphous, despite the Ministry's many blunders, [[spoiler: Sean Anderson decides not to fire anyone involved because their PR disasters are so colossal, they draw attention away from the government's more mundane day-to-day failings.]]

In short, this trope refers to any situation where someone with authority chooses a candidate who has failed terribly because they feel [[ItsAllMyFault the memory of that failure]] will push them to excel in the future, rather than be predictive of their performance overall. Superiors who follow this trope may have [[NotSoDifferent a similar failure]] in their own past.

In short, this trope refers to any situation where someone with authority to chooses a candidate who has failed terribly because they feel [[ItsAllMyFault the memory of that failure]] will push them to excel in the future, rather than be predictive of their performance overall. Superiors who follow this trope may have [[NotSoDifferent a similar failure]] in their own past.

** In Season 4, Thirteen fatally confounded a diagnosis by accident. Dr. House reasoned that Thirteen would be incredibly attentive to detail after that case. On another occasion, he helps an astronaut further her career in spite of medical considerations that could have made NASA wary. House simply concluded that his patient would be the safest astronaut NASA could possibly hire, given how informed she was about her condition and how desperate she was to do her job well. [[spoiler: He then tells NASA about her disability anyway, because he's not an idiot: someone with her medical issues has no business being in control of the Space Shuttle and he knows it. Except not really. He just said that so the other members of his team wouldn't rat her out on their own.]]

* ''Series/ThePractice'': Early in his career, Bobby put on a half-hearted defense of a man he'd been appointed to represent as a public defender, believing him to be guilty; the man was convicted of murder. The man was exonerated several years later and hired Bobby to handle his wrongful-imprisonment suit, figuring he'd be motivated to atone for his own role in the conviction.

* Wrestling/TripleH was the only one of a group of four people to be punished for what was known as "The [=MSG=] Incident." Triple H and Wrestling/ShawnMichaels hugged Wrestling/ScottHall and Wrestling/KevinNash, who were on their way to Wrestling/{{WCW}}. Someone caught this on camera, and it quickly made the rounds. Since Hall and Nash were gone, and Michaels was the WWE Champion at the time, Triple H had to take the whole of the punishment. One would think this incident would keep him at the bottom of the card for the rest of his life, and utterly ruin him, despite Triple H's love for the business. Fast forward to today: Triple H is married to Vince [=McMahon=]'s daughter, won thirteen WWE world titles in his career, and is being groomed to take over the business side of the WWE.

* Relatively common in the US military, where a soldier is put in charge of something, and receiving the training to be qualified to be in charge of it, ''after'' they screw up something in the first place. Said soldiers become very conscious about ensuring that it is done right all the time, especially as one more screw up means that they will be punished more harshly due to the fact that they now know better.

** In Season 4, Thirteen fatally confounded a diagnosis by accident. Dr. House reasoned that Thirteen would be incredibly attentive to detail after that case. On another occasion, he helps an astronaut further her career in spite of medical considerations that could have made NASA wary. House simply concluded that his patient would be the safest astronaut NASA could possibly hire, given how informed she was about her condition and how desperate she was to do her job well. [[spoiler: He then tells NASA about her disability anyway, because he's not an idiot: someone with her medical issues has no business being in control of the Space Shuttle and he knows it.]]

** This happened, in a rather unusual way, to Bevel Lemelisk, one of the designers of the original Death Star. He had been responsible for the exhaust port flaw on the original Death Star. The Emperor [[YouHaveFailedMe had him executed for that blunder]]...and then used a Sith technique to transfer his consciousness to a clone body. Lemelisk was then placed in charge of redesigning the Death Star. And every time he made another mistake, the Emperor would execute him [[TheManyDeathsOfYou in some new gruesome manner]], then transfer his consciousness to a clone body again.

* In ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', this is one of Reinhard von Lohengramm's most admirable traits: when a subordinate fails him, he just tells him that he knows the subordinate learned his lesson and will do better next time. He is universally right in his judgement. [[note]]He wasn't always like that. The first time Reinhard wanted to punish an officer who caused him to lose a battle, his best friend and living conscience, Kircheis, pleaded to him not to do it. Reinhard listened to his advice and learned the lesson.[[/note]]

* In Lee Lightner's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Literature/SpaceWolf novel ''Sons of Fenris'', when Tor has unwisely led his forces into an ambush, Ragnar chooses him to lead to the attack on a [[CoolGate warp portal]], because Tor
-->''Needs an opportunity to redeem himself, Ranulf. Redemption requires two things, desire and opportunity. I know this better than most.''

*** Contrast with a similar situation earlier in the trilogy; the tractor beam operator in that case exhibited both incompetence and insubordination--he had failed to capture the right target, and then tried to pass the buck on to his superior. Once Thrawn got a grasp of the situation, ''that'' tractor beam operator was executed.

* ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'': 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.

* ''Series/TheSandbaggers'': The Director of Operations uses something like this to select his titular spies; his secretary observes that all his agents are superhumanly dedicated to make up for a self-perceived defect or inadequacy.

* ''{{Series/CSI}}'': Grissom is told to fire Warrick because Warrick left a scene and, as a result, rookie CSI Holly Gribbs is killed. Grissom tells Warrick that he's already lost one CSI, and that he doesn't want to lose another. [[note]] If he fired Warrick for making a mistake, he'd also have to fire himself and the rest of the team, because they've ''all'' made mistakes at one time or another. [[/note]] Warrick then becomes one of the most reliable members of TheTeam.

* ''Series/ThePractice'': Early in his career, Bobby put on a half-hearted defense of a man he'd been appointed to represent as a public defender, believing him to be guilty; the man was convicted of murder. The man was exonerated several years later, and hired Bobby to handle his wrongful-imprisonment suit, figuring he'd be motivated to atone for his own role in the conviction.

*** In "Rules of Engagement" Worf was once put on trial for mistakenly firing on a Klingon civilian ship and killing everyone on board. Fortunately, it was a frame-up job and Worf did not actually kill anyone, and is subsequently cleared of all charges. However, he did still fire before properly identifying his target, and Sisko rightly upbraids him for it. Sisko also tells him that this experience will probably prepare him to be a great captain.

* In the '90s restaurant chain Jack in the Box had cases of e. coli stemming from undercooked meat, causing some deaths. The resulting publicity threatened to close down the chain, but the company put out a lot of effort to ensure their burgers would never be undercooked again, and the publicity from those efforts helped make Jack even bigger than before.
* Creator/ChristopherTitus says this was his father's [[SinkOrSwimMentor primary parenting method]]: let him do dangerous things like stick a penny in a wall socket, then after he was hurt, saying "You're not gonna do that again, are you?" In this case it was more 'let you screw up under supervision where I can make sure it won't kill you, so you'll know better than to do it when I'm not there to protect you' than 'not firing you as my son for being a moron because you'll learn.' Back when houses frequently had fire in them, letting a kid stick its hand in the fire under supervision (or even burning them ''yourself'') was often recommended so that they would learn from a very early age that fire hurts, and wouldn't go blundering into it and dying while your back was turned.
* In a possible company example, after the Exxon-Valdez debacle Exxon reinvented itself by developing an obsession with safety.

See also SecretTestOfCharacter, TrainingAccident, YouDidEverythingYouCould, and NecessaryFail. Contrast with YouHaveFailedMe, when a subordinate gets harshly (often terminally) punished for possibly trivial mistakes.

* ''Series/AshesToAshes'' pulls this one when Chris turns out to have been corrupt. Gene decides that the shame of still working in CID with everyone knowing what he did will be his punishment.

*** Unfortunately, subverted in the later episode "Change of Heart", where Worf again breaks protocol, this time to save his otherwise-fatally-injured wife, resulting in a totally botched mission (a valuable enemy defector ends up dead). Sisko, as his superior officer, advises Worf that ''this'' failure probably means he will ''never'' be offered the position of captain. Then, "as a man who lost his wife", Sisko admits he probably would have done the exact same thing in Worf's place.

** In Season 4, Thirteen fatally confounded a diagnosis by accident. Dr. House reasoned that Thirteen would be incredibly attentive to detail after that case. On another occasion, he helps an astronaut further her career in spite of medical considerations that could have made NASA wary. House simply concluded that his patient would be the safest astronaut NASA could possibly hire, given how informed she was about her condition and how desperate she was to do her job well. [[spoiler: He then tells NASA about her disability anyway, because he's not an idiot: someone with her medical issues has no business in control of the Space Shuttle and he knows it.]]

* ''Series/HappyDays'': Chachi accidentally burns down Arnold's. Al (the owner) is upset about the fire but doesn't blame Chachi because it was an accident. Fonzie chews Chachi out about it; then appoints Chachi as his representative at [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks the new]] [[InNameOnly Arnold's]] (in which Fonzie's partner with Al), because Fonz knows Chachi will make sure not to screw up again.

* BabettesFeast: As a young lieutenant, Lorens Löwenhielm falls into debt and makes a mess of his career. He is exiled to his aunt's manor in Jutland, where he falls in love with one of the film's protagonists and is rejected. This inspires him to rededicate his life to the military. When we next see him, he is an accomplished general.

** In ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', Grand Admiral Thrawn promotes a subordinate who failed to capture Luke's ship with a TractorBeam. 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. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He did.]]

* Christopher Titus says this was his father's primary parenting method: let him do dangerous things like stick a penny in a wall socket, then after he was hurt, saying "You're not gonna do that again, are you?" In this case it was more 'let you screw up under supervision where I can make sure it won't kill you, so you'll know better than to do it when I'm not there to protect you' than 'not firing you as my son for being a moron because you'll learn.' Back when houses frequently had fire in them, letting a kid stick its hand in the fire under supervision (or even burning them ''yourself'') was often recommended so that they would learn from a very early age that fire hurts, and wouldn't go blundering into it and dying while your back was turned.

** In Season 4, Thirteen fatally confounded a diagnosis by accident. Dr. House reasoned that Thirteen would be incredibly attentive to detail after that case. On another occasion, he helps an astronaut further her career in spite of medical considerations that could have made NASA wary. House simply concluded that his patient would be the safest astronaut NASA could possibly hire, given how informed she was about her condition and how desperate she was to do her job well.

* Brutally averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''. When recruiting for Alphinaud's Crystal Braves group, one of those you pick up is Laurentius, a former member of the Wail Walkers of Gridania, who sold out to the Garleans for a bit of gil. He tells you he's willing to change and is happy for the chance to right his wrong. [[spoiler:However, it turns out that he's been bought out by Teledji Adaledji and he actively plots against you, planting a bottle that would be used to accuse you of assassinating Sultana Nanamo.]]

* ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy''
** Grand Admiral Thrawn promotes a subordinate who failed to capture Luke's ship with a TractorBeam. 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. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He did.]]
** Contrast with a similar situation in a previous book; the tractor beam operator in that case exhibited both incompetence and insubordination--he had failed to capture the right target, and then tried to pass the buck on to his superior. Once Thrawn got a grasp of the situation, ''that'' tractor beam operator was executed.

* In Lee Lightner's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' SpaceWolf novel ''Sons of Fenris'', when Tor has unwisely led his forces into an ambush, Ragnar chooses him to lead to the attack on a [[CoolGate warp portal]], because Tor

See also SecretTestOfCharacter, TrainingAccident, YouDidEverythingYouCould. Contrast with YouHaveFailedMe, when a subordinate gets harshly (often terminally) punished for possibly trivial mistakes.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek:
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': An indirect example in the Season 7 episode "The Pegasus". Captain Picard mentions that the deciding factor that persuaded him to take on Will Riker as his XO was actually a ''reprimand'' in his record for "insubordination" (read: [[HonestAdvisor "telling a superior officer something they didn't want to hear"]]), showing Riker to be someone who cared more about doing his duty than looking good before a promotion board.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** In "Rules of Engagement" Worf was once put on trial for mistakenly firing on a Klingon civilian ship and killing everyone on board. Fortunately, it was a frame-up job and Worf did not actually kill anyone, and is subsequently cleared of all charges. However, he did still fire before properly identifying his target, and Sisko rightly upbraids him for it. Sisko also tells him that this experience will probably prepare him to be a great captain.

* ''StarTrek/TheNextGeneration'': An indirect example. In the Season 7 episode "The Pegasus", Captain Picard mentions that the deciding factor that persuaded him to take on Will Riker as his XO was actually a ''reprimand'' in his record for "insubordination" (read: [[HonestAdvisor "telling a superior officer something they didn't want to hear"]]), showing Riker to be someone who cared more about doing his duty than looking good before a promotion board.

** Worf was once put on trial for mistakenly firing on a Klingon civilian ship and killing everyone on board. Fortunately, it was a frame-up job and Worf did not actually kill anyone, and is subsequently cleared of all charges. However, he did still fire before properly identifying his target, and Sisko rightly upbraids him for it. Sisko also tells him that this experience will probably prepare him to be a great captain.
*** Unfortunately, subverted in a later episode where Worf again breaks protocol, this time to save his otherwise-fatally-injured wife, resulting in a totally botched mission (a valuable enemy defector ends up dead). Sisko, as his superior officer, advises Worf that ''this'' failure probably means he will ''never'' be offered the position of captain. Then, "as a man who lost his wife", Sisko admits he probably would have done the exact same thing in Worf's place.

* ''TheThrawnTrilogy''