Yeah ... hmm.. haf a break
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, but I ignored it.
However, when the busboy brought our water and utensils, I noticed he
also had a spoon in his shirt pocket, then I looked around the room
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
Consulting, experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our
processes. After several months of statistical analysis, they
concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil.
This represents a drop freaquency of approximately 3 spoons per table
per hour. If our personnel are prepared to deal with that
contingency, 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 spoon.
"I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of
making an extra trip to get it right now,"
the waiter said.
I was rather impressed.
Then I noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the
waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the
same string hanging from their flies. My curiosity got the better of
me and, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can
you tell me why have that string right there?"
"Not everyone is as observant as you," the waiter replied. "That
consulting firm I mentioned also found that we can save time in the
restroom."
"How so?" I asked.
"See," he continued, "by tying this string to the tip of you know
what, we can pull it out over the urinal without touching it and,
that way, eliminate the need to wash the hands, shortening the time
spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent."
"After you get it out, how do you put it back?" I asked.
"Well," he whispered, lower his voice, "I don't know about the
others, but I use the spoon."
Cheers ...
