Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 05, 2021

It must make Mike feel good to know that his boss has so much confidence in him.

There shouldn’t be any favoritism!!

Coded business-speak for passing the buck.

Mike could ask KIM which coder to fire in her place. She probably knows more than Bernie about which coders the company can do just as well without in the first place.

He should hire the Dogbert firing service to do the job then give himself a bonus as they usually do after downsizing!

“Could” handle it? LOL

Mikey’s Choice. [Looks wise in direction of cartoonist.]

Yeah, you would. On the plus side, a good coder can get a gig pretty easily. They take all the good stuff they learn with them and spread it around.

just change the list and fire another coder.

Simple: Fire Bernie instead! (He did give you carte blanche, after all…)

The Bible says God doesn’t allow any trouble in our lives that we can’t handle. Sometimes I wish He didn’t have such confidence in me.

Actually, he wouldn’t have given it to Mike if he didn’t know that he (Bernie) couldn’t handle it.

“Meanwhile the cuts to personnel will reduce our costs and increase profitability and increase my bonus”

Bernie’s clique’ answer is almost as good as “Well, you should have known!”

There’s your out, Mike. Take it and run with it. Just don’t blab about how it all came about.

Reminds me of story I read about a tree trimming service company crew leader. He had recruited and trained a good crew that was the most productive in the whole company. But the owner told him he had to fire some of his crew because profits weren’t high enough (and to be fair, the owner was cutting members of all crews). The crew leader needed all of his guys to remain highly productive, and felt this was an indication of more trouble to come… so he found new jobs for all of this crew and himself with a competitor… gave the owner the collected resignations of the whole crew and told him that he had exceeded his expectations…

One more argument against office romances.

Mike’s screwed, one way or the other… :D

Just make sure everyone knows it was Bernie’s idea.

Sophie’s choice.

Fire the boss.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about. All I know is that Kim now needs a place to stay, Mike.

Ask Kim for help. She may already have 4 other job offers waiting in the parking lot.