Efficiency
Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and
noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in
his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange. When the busboy
brought our water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon
in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around saw that all the staff
had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve
our soup I asked, "Why the spoon?"
"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners
hired a consulting firm to revamp all our processes. After several
months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most
frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of
approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel
are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back
to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift."
As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to
replace it with his spare. "I'll get another spoon next
time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to
get it right now." I was impressed.
I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter's
fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the
same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off,
I asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why
you have that string right there?"
"Oh, certainly!" Then he lowered his voice. "Not
everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also
found out that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this
string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out without
touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening
the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent."
"After you get it out, how do you put it back?"
"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the
others, but I use the spoon."
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