[rick888]

I take a different approach, mostly because I've fought hard to do the right thing..and it rarely works..and I usually end up looking like the bad guy.

I do what my managers want and when things start falling apart, I remind them about the warnings I gave them before-hand (sometimes with a smile)

I don't worry about the business-side of things because I'm not a partner in the company and it's not my job. If these situations happen too often, or I get blamed, I leave and find another job (usually with better pay).

I saved my last company from many disasters because the boss decided to let his 20 year old wife with absolutely no experience make business and marketing decisions based on what she was feeling that day. It was actually pretty interesting, because I used it as kind of a testing ground for the worst ideas ever. In many cases, the results were predictable and entertaining.

In 2008, we saw that things were getting bad. Orders were slowing down and management asked me to give them some marketing ideas. I gave a bunch of ideas that were inexpensive to implement, but would take time. They didn't listen. Fast-forward to 2010. They want to start trying my ideas. When they weren't making money in 2 weeks, the ideas were considered worthless and dropped.

Sometimes you just have to let children touch a hot iron to see what it's like to get burned. The smart ones will learn from this and not get burned in the future.