At ITWeb’s recent conference “Doing More With Less”, author Terry White recounted how he nearly got fired. The HR manager came into his office and asked for some project to be done. White said no. So the HR guy said: “You can’t say no – I’m your customer!” White replied: “I’m not your customer.

You can’t fire me and I can’t fire you. We have a partnership and associate relationship. If you want to discuss the project like that, then that’s fine.”