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Last night, I went with 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 I 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 end of
our "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."
"Hhmmm...After you get it out, how
do you put it back?" I asked
"Well," he whispered,
"I don't know about the others...
but I use the spoon."
Submitted by
Ashley, Emmitsburg, Md.
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