reelhappy

For all of you who deal with restaurants and understand the need for theservice to be faster, thisstory is a timeless lesson on how consultants can make a difference to an organization.

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant and noticed thatthe waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. Itseemed a little strange.

When another waiter brought our water, I noticed he also had a spoon inhis shirt pocket.

Then I looked around and 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 Andersen Consultingto revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, theyconcluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It ;represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table perhour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number oftrips 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 itwith his spare, and added, '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 ofthe waiter's fly.

Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same stringhanging 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 alsofound out that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this string tothe tip of you kno w what, we can pull it out without touching it andeliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in therestroom by 76.39 percent.

I asked '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.'

Tuna Man

Saw that coming but

Murphy's Law

:sick

Splittine

Thats great.