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The Spoon

A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.
Very Impressive!

Last week, we took some friends to a new restaurant, Steve's Place,
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 observed that he also had a spoon in his 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 inquired, "Why the spoon?"

"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting
to revamp all of 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 right then and he replaced
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 saw that all of 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 learned that we can save time in the
restroom. By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull
it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, thus
shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%."

I asked quietly, "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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