Last week we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed
that he 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 out water
and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket, then 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 Anderson
Consulting, experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our processes. After several
months of statistical analysis, they concluded that customers drop their spoons 73.84 percent more often than any other utensil. This
represents a drop frequency 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 1.5 man-hours per
shift." As luck would have it I dropped my spoon and the waiter 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", he said. I was
rather impressed. The waiter served our main course and I continued to look around. I
then 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 you have that
string right there?" "Oh, certainly!" he answered, lowering his voice. "Not everyone is as observant as you. 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 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." "Okay, that makes
sense" I replied, "but . . . if the string helps you get it out, how do you
put it back in?" "Well," he whispered, lowering his voice even further, "I don't
know about the others, but I use the spoon."
