set-up to fail

I have been around to know that some corporate people, wanting to get rid of someone from the company, got creative. Instead of the usual fault finding drama, they simply promoted the guy to a position where his incompetency would be glaringly obvious.

And what makes it painful, is that the guy happily accepted the promotion that led to his eventual demise. He did now know that he is being set-up to fail. And fail he did. Miserably.

I've seen that happen. It is ugly. It is specially painful and confusing to the victimized person. I once comforted a person like that more than a decade ago.

And until up to now, I still can not imagine what would drive someone to do it to a fellow human being. But it happens.

And sometimes, it is even in a guise of charity like in cases of students I meet in class and thinks grades can be negotiated in other ways than "show up in class-do good in it and pass all the exams".

I mean, who gave them the idea that grades can be negotiated? Who has encouraged this practice? Why encourage this practice?

Can't we see that failures and setbacks are as important as successes when one journeys and seeks? Or is it the absence of purpose, of life's true purpose or of one's reason for being born that blurs the gift of failures or setbacks that we start to think and embrace that all that matters is getting passing grades? Getting promoted? :)

"... why think like mere men?"