The original comment was regarding employees currently being judged via metrics bringing up whether certain jobs can or cannot be judged using metrics is pointless.

Your analogy only works when applied to the hiring stage, as that is when the publishing house decides to work with you. If the publisher accepted your manuscript, assigned you an editor, gave you a target publish date, and gave you advance and then suddenly booted you and said “your work isn’t good” you’d have some questions, and rightly so.

This sort of thing happens all the time? Many manuscripts and screenplays are stillborn. Movies make it halfway through production before the plug is pulled. Software projects fail left and right, with millions of dollars spent (sometimes billions!)

Human endeavors sometimes fail to live up to expectations.