Last week I took some friends out to a
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 out
water and utensils, I noticed
he also had a
spoon in his shirt pocket. I
then looked around
the room and saw that all the
waitpersons had
a spoon in their pocket.
When the waiter came back to
check on our
order 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 customers drop
their spoons
73.84% 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 we finished talking, a
metallic sound was
heard from behind me. Quickly,
the waiter
replaced the dropped spoon
with the one in his
pocket and said: "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 rather impressed. The
waiter continued
taking our order and while my
guests ordered,
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 fly.
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." "How so?" "See," he
continued, "by
tying this string to the tip
of ...you know... 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,
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." 
