George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Sure, it would have been easy for the captain to make George walk the plank and then replace him with a new recruit.
But the captain had invested a lot of time, money, and patience in George.
So, he hired Greybeard, the finest Professor of Pirateology, to teach George all he knew.
Two weeks later, Graybeard quit.
“The fool is utterly confused,” he said. “George needs the fundamentals, not advanced theory.”
The captain sighed, picked up a mop and bucket, and handed them to George.
“Go swab the deck.”