A little corporate humor
----------------------
I took some friends out to dinner last week, and I noticed a
spoon in the shirt pocket of our waiter as he handed us the
menus. It seemed a little odd, but I dismissed it as a random
thing. Until our busboy came with water & tableware; he
too,
sported a spoon in his breast pocket. I looked around the
room,
and all the waiters, waitresses, busboys, etc. had spoons in
their pockets.
When our waiter returned to take our order, I just had to
ask,
"Why the spoons?"
"Well," he explained, "our parent company recently hired some
Andersen Consulting efficiency experts to review all our
procedures, and
after months of statistical analyses, they concluded that our
patrons
drop spoons on the floor 73% more often than any other utensil; at
a
frequency of 3 spoons per hour per workstation. By preparing
all
our workers for this contingency in advance, we can cut our
trips to the kitchen down and save time...nearly 1.5 extra
man-hours per shift.
Just as he concluded, a "ch-ching" came from the table behind
him, and he quickly replaced a fallen spoon with the one from
his pocket.
"I'll grab another spoon the next time I'm in the kitchen
instead of making a special trip," he proudly explained.
I was impressed. "Thanks. I had to ask."
"No problem," he answered, then he continued to take our
orders.
As the members of my dinner party took their turns, my eyes
darted back & forth from each person ordering and my menu.
That's when,
out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a thin, black thread
protruding from our waiter's fly. Again, I dismissed it; yet
I
had to scan the room and, sure enough, there were other
waiters
& busboys with strings hanging out of their trousers.
My curiosity overrode discretion at this point, so before he
could leave I had to ask. "Excuse me, but...uh...why, or
what...about that string?"
"Oh, yeah" he began in a quieter tone. "Not many people are
that
observant. That same efficiency group found we could save
time
in the Men's room, too." "How's that, I asked?"
"You see, by tying a string to the end of our, eh. . .,
selves,
we can pull it out at the urinals literally hands-free and
thereby
eliminate the need to wash our hands, cutting time spent in the
restroom
by over 93%!" "Oh, that makes sense," I said, but then thinking
through
the process, I asked, "Hey, wait a minute. If the string helps
you
pull it out, how do you get it back in?"
"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the other guys; but
I
use the spoon in my pocket"!
