the spoon

For all of you who frequent restaurants and understand the need for the
> service to be faster, this short story is a timeless lesson on how
> consultants can make a difference to an organization.
>
> Last week, we took some friends out to Pierre's restaurant and noticed
> that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.
> It seemed a little strange. When another waiter brought our water, I
> noticed 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 asked, 'Why the spoon?'
> 'Well', he explained, 'the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting
> 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 sort of
> 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, cer tainly!' Then he lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so
> observant.
>
> That consulting firm also mentioned they had 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 without touching it and eliminate the need to wash
> our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom 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.'
>
>
>