Depending on where you work, it can sometimes seem like firings occur at random.
After all, if you haven't seen employees who do nothing skate by while hard workers get fired for petty reasons, you may not realize how many people out there would love to work where you do.
As much as many of us would like to think the world runs according to systems propelled forward by rational decision makers, there are always some people who reach their positions of influence by chasing their greed. And it's hardly unheard of for these folks to get lucky after making a major decision through their personal whims.
So while the profits the manager we're about to hear from has secured would have made him irreplaceable in a rational world, his story illustrates what really mattered to his bosses.