At one point during my mostly misspent life, I found myself working the night shift in a machine department of a plastics factory. My primary job was to sharpen blades used in various machines. I guess that made me a tool grinder. During my schoolboy days, when I was deemed old enough to own a knife, I received my first one Christmas of my 8th. year. It had three blades and a white bone handle, and became my constant companion, being in my pocket at school, church, everywhere. I paid special attention to how my dad sharpened knives. Constant testing and honing of the blades on my knife to a razor edge soon earned me the title, "Family blade honer". I was given the chore of keeping the kitchen knives, hand scythes and other household blades sharp. Dad also decided I was old enough to start using the scythe on weeds in the orchard and around some of the outbuildings. Back to the plastics plant. It wasn't long before workers would come by the tool shop where I worked, wanting me to sharpen their pocket knives, skinning blades, even lawn mower blades. I was happy to oblige. It made the nights shorter and I was doing what I liked to do and was good at. And that's where the trouble started. Machine operators on the other shifts started asking for blades 'that guy on third shift' ground. They told the other grinders my blades lasted lots longer. The next thing I knew, I was being chewed out for damaging too many blades. I was sent off to the shipping department, where I spent my days loading semi trailers. Jealousy won out.
From your account, clearly this is not what you were doing, but I have fired people who were perfectly competent at their jobs, or at least the technical aspect of their jobs. Sometimes, people are so ambitious that they create a bad workplace. I couldn't imagine firing, demoting or reassigning someone simply for doing an excellent job, but I've fired a couple of people whose ambition made it very uncomfortable for others to work with them, as they were not only showing competence in their own work but also felt the need to point out the flaws in the work of others. This was a particular problem in EMS, where pointing out a mistake can lead to a lawsuit, and where EMS personnel are paired up for 24-hour shifts. Getting along with one another is an important part of the job and, more importantly, every medic has to feel that the other has his back. While I would want any of my medics to let their partner know if he is missing something in patient care, there are ways to do that tactfully and without being critical. People who couldn't learn that became, what I would call excellent medics who no one wants to work with.
My father told me when I was younger not to try to be the "best" at any job, just go to work and do an honest days work. Not the best, but not the worst. Time and experience showed me that it was never a good idea to point out another persons short comings. I remember when I used to wait tables I noticed they always let certain girls go home early. I asked about this one day because I never got to go early and was told they send off the ones that were not good for business. Funny but it sure seemed like they were getting a special break, but in hindsight I guess that was a valid business decision.
It was jealousy and sabotage. Some of the other grinders must have ruined a bunch of blades to show the super what the night guy did. When he called me in his office, he showed me a bunch of ruined blades. That wasn't my work, but prove it. Everything worked out for the better though. I was there almost two years, then quit to go to work as a press operator in a dry ice plant a quarter mile down the road, for a nickel an hour more to start than I was getting at the plastics plant after near two years.
@Ike Willis, I also believe that it was sabotage due to jealousy. It happened to my husband in 2003 when he was hired as general manager of a Japanese software house. He was invited by his Japanese friend who was the translator of the said company. Things were going great with the high salary and the confidence of the president who is a pure Japanese - this means he would only trust a Japanese particularly the translator in that case. When my husband created the Table of Organization for the plantilla - there were 24 employees mostly programmers and project managers, the translator was in the position of Chief Operations Officer which was placed under the GM. The COO resented it and since he is the trusted guy in the company, he ruined my husband's image to their president. When my husband resigned due to harassment by the president, the COO was crying, saying he was sorry for what he had done to my husband. And to think that he was my husband's friend and he was the one who invited my husband to apply in that company, it's clearly professional jealousy that made him do that.
A slightly different syndrome, but when I worked as a volunteer for Voluntary Service Overseas, part of my aim was to do myself out of a job. In fact, that should be the ambition of any volunteer. The idea is that you leave behind enough knowledge and skill so that local people can continue to do the job that you started. I'm glad to say that on the three occasions I've been a volunteer, all in sub-Saharan Africa, there were good people that were able to pick up where I left off.
I did this when I worked for the Census bureau. We were supposed find all the people living in a given area and record specific info about them. I felt kind of bad about taking taxpayer money for it, so I got through the job as quickly as I could. I effectively worked my way out of a job.
Sadly I see manipulation and all sorts of political jockeying every day at my current job. It is rather sickening if truth be told. I have never really been a person that was for this sort of thing, I know when you work with people there should be the expectation of a degree of politics, however this stuff crosses the line. I guess that is the true litmus test, when is it acid and toxic and when is it just people. We have a little group that started innocently enough as the social committee for the neighborhood, more correctly what these people ended up was the social shake down crew that think that everyone and everything revolves around them, their wants and their needs. Yet despite it all, and clear evidence to the malarkey, no one seems to want to do anything one way or another about it. Pretty sad, reminds me a lot of the days back in high school. I find it very mean spirited the way the pick and chose who it is in the community they are going to go after for usually trivial things.
Yes, this has happened to be more than once where I worked my way out of a job. I had a large book editing project involving 400 pages of text. After the job was completed, there I was with nothing to do. Other times when I was creating web sites, after the site was completed and the customer said they didn't require ongoing support, I was out of job. Another time, someone contracted with me to write 75 articles. No more than that. When I completed my task, again I worked my way out of a job.