This "lesson" is so relevant to many situations. The one that comes to mind for me (although a corollary to your lesson) is someone who is offered a new position with their current employer but still needs to jump through a few hoops to get it. What the company doesn't realize is that the employee now "sees" the "junkyard" and figures if they have to jump through hoops, they might as well see if anyones else's junkyard is as bad/good and they being looking for jobs outside of the company. Unintended consequences.