Here's one for the BPR guys!

While dining with some clients last week, I noticed a spoon in the shirt
pocket of our waiter as he handed us the menus. It seemed a little odd,
but I dismissed it as a random thing. But when our busboy came with
water & tableware; he, too, sported a spoon in his breast-pocket. I
looked around the room and discovered
that all the waiters, waitresses, busboys, etc. had spoons in their
pockets. When our waiter returned to take our order, I just had to ask,
"Why the spoons?" "Well," he explained, "our parent company recently
hired some Andersen Consulting efficiency experts to review all our
procedures, and after months of statistical analyses, they concluded
that our patrons drop spoons on the floor at a
frequency of 3 spoons per hour per workstation. By preparing all our
workers
for this contingency in advance, we can cut our trips to the kitchen
down and save nearly 1.5 extra man hours per shift." Just as he
concluded, a "ch-ching" came from the table behind him, and he quickly
replaced a fallen spoon with the one from his pocket. "I'll grab
another spoon the next time I'm in the kitchen instead of making a
special trip," he proudly explained. I was impressed. "Thanks. I had
to ask." "No problem," he answered. Then as he continued to take our
orders, I spotted a thin, black thread protruding from his fly. Again,
I dismissed it; yet I had to scan the room and, sure enough, there were
other
waiters & busboys with strings hanging out of their trousers. My
curiosity overrode discretion at this point, so before he could leave I
had to ask. "Excuse me, but...uh...why, or what...about that string?"
"Oh, yeah," he began in a quieter tone. "Not many people are that
observant. That same efficiency group found we could save time in the
Men's room, too." "How's that?" I asked. "You see, by
tying a string to the end of our, eh, selves, we can pull it out at the
urinals
literally hands-free and thereby eliminate the need to wash our hands,
cutting time spent in the restroom by over 93%!" "Oh, that makes
sense," I said, but then thinking thru theprocess, I asked, "Hey,
wait-a-minute. If the string helps you pull it out, how do you get it
back in?" "Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the other guys;
but I use my spoon."