Apparently the city is expensive, but did you know that you can get a burrito around here for less than ten bucks? The Anna's Taqueria online menu explains that you get a main filling along with choices regarding cheese, beans, and so on; you can even choose a 'super' size, which is also less than ten bucks. All things considered, it's a good price.
I was thinking the other day that if I were rich - I'm talking rich, like a million or ten million or even one hundred millions bucks in the bank rick - anyway, I was thinking that if I were that rich, I'd still be charged less than ten bucks. It's only right, because no minimum-wage employee should know anything about me except my order - the filling, the cheese, the beans, and so on. Most things considered, it's a fair price.
Showing posts with label toa nonsense - hunches about lunches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toa nonsense - hunches about lunches. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
proper corona admin, vol 22
A few months ago, I decided it was time I learned a little more about my surroundings in Beacon Hill. I've been living here for over five years, you know? I started with a systematic examination of the local takeout spots and after a few months I have my list of best options. Some of you may be thinking - just in time! And it is indeed true, lockdown means I'm usually home for over twenty-three hours each day so life is immeasurably improved with this list in hand.
But how good is my list? Just last week, I found myself wondering how six months ago I could have thought that an obviously mediocre takeout dinner would be worth eating a second time (1). I suspect that one unexpected side effect of the lockdown is a sharpened set of taste buds. After all, when the very act of getting takeout is a life-threatening task, you become much better at deciding what's worth the price.
Footnotes
1. Oh, like anyone would get dinner based on TOA...
It was my intention to actually publish my list at some point but I think in the current moment it's best to put it on indefinite delay. The way I see it, posting anything that might have a very real effect on businesses is almost a crime these days, especially given that some of these establishments may be right on the brink.
But how good is my list? Just last week, I found myself wondering how six months ago I could have thought that an obviously mediocre takeout dinner would be worth eating a second time (1). I suspect that one unexpected side effect of the lockdown is a sharpened set of taste buds. After all, when the very act of getting takeout is a life-threatening task, you become much better at deciding what's worth the price.
Footnotes
1. Oh, like anyone would get dinner based on TOA...
It was my intention to actually publish my list at some point but I think in the current moment it's best to put it on indefinite delay. The way I see it, posting anything that might have a very real effect on businesses is almost a crime these days, especially given that some of these establishments may be right on the brink.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
reading review - the goal (sapporo ramen, part one - bottlenecks)
Hi all,
Let's resume our recent examination of The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt’s 1984 Business Bro classic. I think the best approach for the remaining ideas is to put them in the context of real-life examples. After almost no debate, I chose TOA favorite and Porter Square institution Sapporo Ramen as my example. Of course, I know nothing specific about the restaurant's operations, but I'm comfortable speaking knowledgeably from a foundation of best guesses, wild assumptions, and hunches about ramen lunches.
An organization should always have a simple answer to the question of what it is doing.
Easy – Sapporo Ramen serves bowls of ramen.
One way to start looking for a bottleneck is to learn which parts tend to always be in shortage. Whatever operation is responsible for the production is likely unable to keep up with demand.
There are two possibilities. The obvious bottleneck is seating (well, obvious if you've had to wait an hour for a seat). Restaurant capacity is somewhere between fifteen and twenty people, all in full sight of the five to ten waiting customers. In theory, adding seats would address the shortage. However, expanding capacity must be complex - leases, zoning, buying chairs - all that admin! It might be better to just work with seating as a constant for the purposes of this post. (Plus, there is an unstated assumption in The Goal that ‘bottlenecks’ refer to resource allocation.)
This leaves us with the ramen, a dish with several ingredients – noodles, broth, toppings, etc. There is also equipment (such as the bowl or the chopsticks). I bet only the broth requires any prep work - everything else is likely purchased Sapporo-ready. Therefore, if demand increased, the broth would fall short before any other ramen component.
There should never be idle time for a bottleneck because any lost work through this station is lost forever to the organization.
Sapporo Ramen optimizes revenue if all operational decisions first consider maximal ramen output. This means tools, resources, and staff do other tasks after maximizing ramen production. If a customer waits too long for a bowl, it represents a reduction in the organization’s maximum possible revenue that day.
Quality measurements on bottleneck parts should take place before the bottleneck step because a scrapped part pre-bottleneck is a part lost while anything scrapped post-bottleneck is a cost to the entire system.
There is no time for thorough post-ramen QA so Sapporo Ramen must cull bad ingredients before the chef turns on the stove. The broth presents a challenge because failed broth post-production could dramatically lower the revenue capacity for the next day. (It's possible for inventory to cover this loss but days-old broth is no ideal.) If I were seeking evidence of a robust QA process, I would expect the restaurant's biggest waste item to be discarded broth ingredients prior to preparation. This would mean Sapporo Ramen was as close to 100% certain as possible to producing broth in lockstep with the next day's expected demand.
Bottlenecks waste time if they remain idle, work on defective parts, or produce parts not within the current demand.
Overproduction is a subtle hint of a wasteful process. Ramen sitting on the counter is no good – waterlogged noodles, lukewarm broth, and sinking toppings attract tourists, not customers. Ramen containing 'defective parts' likewise disgusts diners.
Bottlenecks must be protected from supply shocks. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of reduced flow leading to the organization operating below potential.
The ideal inventory level allows the restaurant to meet demand without reducing quality. Storage is a tempting cause for next week's problem. I wonder if Sapporo Ramen has agreements with ingredient vendors, perhaps to pay a premium in exchange for being front of the line whenever sudden demand surges require an emergency infusion of backup seaweed.
The daily supply threat is broth. Sapporo Ramen's main focus should be on ensuring sufficient broth inventory to meet the highest possible demand level. All other ingredients could probably be bought at the local Star Market if needed but there is no equivalent plan for a broth shortage.
If the market is not a constraint, measure productivity and structure decisions based on what maximizes utilization of bottleneck resources. If the market is the constraint, use sales less materials divided by hours consumed.
If Sapporo Ramen sells what it makes, it must maximize ramen production. Otherwise, it must produce within the constraint of its ability to carry inventory costs for whatever goes unsold during business hours.
Someone working a non-bottleneck by definition has excess capacity. The utilization level of a non-bottleneck is determined not by its operating rules but by another constraint in the system.
Restaurant workers always move at top speed, implying a ceaseless contribution to the bottom line. However, not all activity generates value. At Sapporo Ramen, the general job description should read 'ensure order rate matches production rate' and the best employees would be those who contribute the most toward this ideal.
If Sapporo Ramen can produce twenty bowls per hour, the best employees would either generate a new order every three minutes or find ways to increase the production rate. This knowledge should help employees make otherwise arbitrary decisions. When the chef is overwhelmed, a server might top off water glasses to slow the order rate. On the other hand, during a slow period a server might seat a new customer, ignoring empty water glasses along the way, because new customers are more likely to place orders.
Saving time on setup at a non-bottleneck is an illusory way to save costs. By definition, non-bottlenecks have excess capacity.
The result of everyone wanting to optimize his or her own work is chaos. Local optimization must come as a secondary priority to system optimization.
Individual efficiency works unless it slows ramen production. Let's use dish washing as an example. If it takes one minute to wash one bowl by hand and ten minutes to wash one hundred bowls in the dishwasher, then it's obviously more efficient to use the dishwasher - the machine is ten times faster!
Well, not so fast, first this is only true when the dishwasher is full. If the dishwasher is half-full, an employee might wait until it's full before running the dishwasher to ensure maximum efficiency. But what if you need a bowl and no spares are to be found? It's time to wash by hand, inefficient like it's 1985, but if it frees up production capacity then it's the most valuable task.
Let's resume our recent examination of The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt’s 1984 Business Bro classic. I think the best approach for the remaining ideas is to put them in the context of real-life examples. After almost no debate, I chose TOA favorite and Porter Square institution Sapporo Ramen as my example. Of course, I know nothing specific about the restaurant's operations, but I'm comfortable speaking knowledgeably from a foundation of best guesses, wild assumptions, and hunches about ramen lunches.
An organization should always have a simple answer to the question of what it is doing.
Easy – Sapporo Ramen serves bowls of ramen.
One way to start looking for a bottleneck is to learn which parts tend to always be in shortage. Whatever operation is responsible for the production is likely unable to keep up with demand.
There are two possibilities. The obvious bottleneck is seating (well, obvious if you've had to wait an hour for a seat). Restaurant capacity is somewhere between fifteen and twenty people, all in full sight of the five to ten waiting customers. In theory, adding seats would address the shortage. However, expanding capacity must be complex - leases, zoning, buying chairs - all that admin! It might be better to just work with seating as a constant for the purposes of this post. (Plus, there is an unstated assumption in The Goal that ‘bottlenecks’ refer to resource allocation.)
This leaves us with the ramen, a dish with several ingredients – noodles, broth, toppings, etc. There is also equipment (such as the bowl or the chopsticks). I bet only the broth requires any prep work - everything else is likely purchased Sapporo-ready. Therefore, if demand increased, the broth would fall short before any other ramen component.
There should never be idle time for a bottleneck because any lost work through this station is lost forever to the organization.
Sapporo Ramen optimizes revenue if all operational decisions first consider maximal ramen output. This means tools, resources, and staff do other tasks after maximizing ramen production. If a customer waits too long for a bowl, it represents a reduction in the organization’s maximum possible revenue that day.
Quality measurements on bottleneck parts should take place before the bottleneck step because a scrapped part pre-bottleneck is a part lost while anything scrapped post-bottleneck is a cost to the entire system.
There is no time for thorough post-ramen QA so Sapporo Ramen must cull bad ingredients before the chef turns on the stove. The broth presents a challenge because failed broth post-production could dramatically lower the revenue capacity for the next day. (It's possible for inventory to cover this loss but days-old broth is no ideal.) If I were seeking evidence of a robust QA process, I would expect the restaurant's biggest waste item to be discarded broth ingredients prior to preparation. This would mean Sapporo Ramen was as close to 100% certain as possible to producing broth in lockstep with the next day's expected demand.
Bottlenecks waste time if they remain idle, work on defective parts, or produce parts not within the current demand.
Overproduction is a subtle hint of a wasteful process. Ramen sitting on the counter is no good – waterlogged noodles, lukewarm broth, and sinking toppings attract tourists, not customers. Ramen containing 'defective parts' likewise disgusts diners.
Bottlenecks must be protected from supply shocks. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of reduced flow leading to the organization operating below potential.
The ideal inventory level allows the restaurant to meet demand without reducing quality. Storage is a tempting cause for next week's problem. I wonder if Sapporo Ramen has agreements with ingredient vendors, perhaps to pay a premium in exchange for being front of the line whenever sudden demand surges require an emergency infusion of backup seaweed.
The daily supply threat is broth. Sapporo Ramen's main focus should be on ensuring sufficient broth inventory to meet the highest possible demand level. All other ingredients could probably be bought at the local Star Market if needed but there is no equivalent plan for a broth shortage.
If the market is not a constraint, measure productivity and structure decisions based on what maximizes utilization of bottleneck resources. If the market is the constraint, use sales less materials divided by hours consumed.
If Sapporo Ramen sells what it makes, it must maximize ramen production. Otherwise, it must produce within the constraint of its ability to carry inventory costs for whatever goes unsold during business hours.
Someone working a non-bottleneck by definition has excess capacity. The utilization level of a non-bottleneck is determined not by its operating rules but by another constraint in the system.
Restaurant workers always move at top speed, implying a ceaseless contribution to the bottom line. However, not all activity generates value. At Sapporo Ramen, the general job description should read 'ensure order rate matches production rate' and the best employees would be those who contribute the most toward this ideal.
If Sapporo Ramen can produce twenty bowls per hour, the best employees would either generate a new order every three minutes or find ways to increase the production rate. This knowledge should help employees make otherwise arbitrary decisions. When the chef is overwhelmed, a server might top off water glasses to slow the order rate. On the other hand, during a slow period a server might seat a new customer, ignoring empty water glasses along the way, because new customers are more likely to place orders.
Saving time on setup at a non-bottleneck is an illusory way to save costs. By definition, non-bottlenecks have excess capacity.
The result of everyone wanting to optimize his or her own work is chaos. Local optimization must come as a secondary priority to system optimization.
Individual efficiency works unless it slows ramen production. Let's use dish washing as an example. If it takes one minute to wash one bowl by hand and ten minutes to wash one hundred bowls in the dishwasher, then it's obviously more efficient to use the dishwasher - the machine is ten times faster!
Well, not so fast, first this is only true when the dishwasher is full. If the dishwasher is half-full, an employee might wait until it's full before running the dishwasher to ensure maximum efficiency. But what if you need a bowl and no spares are to be found? It's time to wash by hand, inefficient like it's 1985, but if it frees up production capacity then it's the most valuable task.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
leftovers #2 – not so fast
I suppose since the first leftover was my origin story, I should square the circle and describe the future of my eating habits. It's simple, these days I try to eat when I’m hungry, and in the future I'd like to do this all the time. At the moment, I estimate I’m hungry around 75% of the time I eat. Some obvious areas of improvement are silly - I’ve had a few Boston Cremes since August, not a single one when hungry - while in other cases the challenge is more about navigating social situations and might prove more difficult for me.
The immediate frontier for me is on the satiety side. I’ve always oveate and this bad habit was reinforced by intermittent fasting. I’ve had my moments but lack consistency. I’ll never forget ordering paella at a Portuguese restaurant at the end of the summer, there was a lot of food on my plate and I shocked myself when half of it came home with me in a container. If you had asked me at this time last year, I would have said a dog was more likely to ignore a fallen roast beef sandwich than I was to bring home leftovers from my own plate.
The challenge is equal parts technical and mental. The technique is easy, I eat too fast, so slower eating should help me get a grip on my fullness signal. The mental side requires more work. I need to get it into my head that the refrigerator is a friend, or at least a trusted ally, and find ways to get excess portions into the right containers. The demon I battle every time is a profound aversion to wasting food, this force that drives me to Haymarket on weekends ensuring a deep sense of loss anytime I see something edible in the waste basket. I wonder sometimes what role this feeling played in making it impossible for me to continue volunteering at a food bank. The planet is not without challenges but a food shortage isn’t among them, a fact lost in the rationing system imposed on the city’s most vulnerable residents.
The immediate frontier for me is on the satiety side. I’ve always oveate and this bad habit was reinforced by intermittent fasting. I’ve had my moments but lack consistency. I’ll never forget ordering paella at a Portuguese restaurant at the end of the summer, there was a lot of food on my plate and I shocked myself when half of it came home with me in a container. If you had asked me at this time last year, I would have said a dog was more likely to ignore a fallen roast beef sandwich than I was to bring home leftovers from my own plate.
The challenge is equal parts technical and mental. The technique is easy, I eat too fast, so slower eating should help me get a grip on my fullness signal. The mental side requires more work. I need to get it into my head that the refrigerator is a friend, or at least a trusted ally, and find ways to get excess portions into the right containers. The demon I battle every time is a profound aversion to wasting food, this force that drives me to Haymarket on weekends ensuring a deep sense of loss anytime I see something edible in the waste basket. I wonder sometimes what role this feeling played in making it impossible for me to continue volunteering at a food bank. The planet is not without challenges but a food shortage isn’t among them, a fact lost in the rationing system imposed on the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
leftovers – not so fast
My ‘intermittent fasting’ dates back to my early twenties. I would go out, have a few too many units, and end up eating some kind of late night meal. I always remember it being Chinese food. After stuffing myself, I would show myself mercy and call it a night.
The next day would always present its challenges. The one constant was that although I was happy to drink plenty of water and coffee, I never felt like eating. I’m sure the 3AM dumplings had something to do with it. I would eventually get around to eating at dinnertime, usually around 7PM, and this was often a healthy meal (by the standards of the weekend). Do the math on my eating schedule, reader, and you see the framework for intermittent fasting. Over the years, I slowly expanded this post-hangover approach to regularly include a few fasting days per month.
I stopped recently, a predictable consequence of reconsidering habits in other aspects of my life. For example, my exercise habits changed as I started listening to my body and responding to its signals, and perhaps this prompted me to consider the same approach at the dinner table. One thing about fasting is that since you don’t eat when you are hungry, you always resume eating when you are (really) hungry. I started by responding to the hunger criteria alone and my fasting stopped almost immediately.
The next day would always present its challenges. The one constant was that although I was happy to drink plenty of water and coffee, I never felt like eating. I’m sure the 3AM dumplings had something to do with it. I would eventually get around to eating at dinnertime, usually around 7PM, and this was often a healthy meal (by the standards of the weekend). Do the math on my eating schedule, reader, and you see the framework for intermittent fasting. Over the years, I slowly expanded this post-hangover approach to regularly include a few fasting days per month.
I stopped recently, a predictable consequence of reconsidering habits in other aspects of my life. For example, my exercise habits changed as I started listening to my body and responding to its signals, and perhaps this prompted me to consider the same approach at the dinner table. One thing about fasting is that since you don’t eat when you are hungry, you always resume eating when you are (really) hungry. I started by responding to the hunger criteria alone and my fasting stopped almost immediately.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
not so fast
I’ve heard that ‘intermittent fasting’ is making news these days (1). In addition to its growing popularity as a diet and weight loss tactic, science is building an improving case for a number of other benefits. I’m happy for whoever benefits from this news but I gave up on fasting a few months ago and I feel a return to fasting is unlikely.
I changed my routine in the summer to emphasize eating when I felt hungry rather than based on external factors like time. Reading Intuitive Eating pushed me in this direction but the change was part of a larger trend of listening to my body rather than listening to my intellect. What does science know about me that I won’t learn by listening to my body?
So, am I now captain of the anti-fasting team? Hardly. Fasting might be a great tool to help reestablish communication between mind and body. I think it’s also good for people to know that if you don’t feel hungry, you can skip meals. It’s beneficial! But I think offering fasting as a solution for people who do not listen to their hunger signals or ignore their satiety cues is a crutch for continuing an unhealthy behavior. The goal should be to help people establish healthy habits; I support fasting to the extent that it can help certain people move toward this goal but I don't think fasting alone is enough to reach the target.
Footnotes
1. You got the news... how?
I got this news as I usually do, a number of people who knew my habits heard about it first and asked me about my thoughts. There was a lot of surprise when I responded that I’d not fasted since August.
I changed my routine in the summer to emphasize eating when I felt hungry rather than based on external factors like time. Reading Intuitive Eating pushed me in this direction but the change was part of a larger trend of listening to my body rather than listening to my intellect. What does science know about me that I won’t learn by listening to my body?
So, am I now captain of the anti-fasting team? Hardly. Fasting might be a great tool to help reestablish communication between mind and body. I think it’s also good for people to know that if you don’t feel hungry, you can skip meals. It’s beneficial! But I think offering fasting as a solution for people who do not listen to their hunger signals or ignore their satiety cues is a crutch for continuing an unhealthy behavior. The goal should be to help people establish healthy habits; I support fasting to the extent that it can help certain people move toward this goal but I don't think fasting alone is enough to reach the target.
Footnotes
1. You got the news... how?
I got this news as I usually do, a number of people who knew my habits heard about it first and asked me about my thoughts. There was a lot of surprise when I responded that I’d not fasted since August.
Friday, January 10, 2020
mission impossible
A recent food highlight was the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. This is made from something I don’t actually understand, a ‘plant-based meat’, whatever that is, anyway, I’ve had this a couple of times before in other burger forms so I kind of knew what to expect. The quality of the Whopper sandwich surprised me, it was tasty, but I’m not ready to make any Major Declarations yet given that I’ve yet to try a regular Whopper. Good studies have control groups, right? Maybe it was the sauce or the lettuce that did the trick.
Jokes aside, my gut tells me (!) that by virtue of similar taste plant-based ‘meat’ will become a perfect substitute for meat. (Don’t ask me when, and let’s assume the CDC doesn’t declare it a carcinogen in two decades.) This would represent a massive development, possibly one of the few great Massive Developments that will happen in my lifetime, because it might usher in the end of meat consumption. With a good alternative available, it’s not hard to imagine a time a few decades in the future when people who still eat meat are regarded as that era’s racists. I'm looking forward to finding out at the nursing home - meat me at bingo, and let's discuss.
Overall, this technology is especially significant for those who see meat consumption as a major factor in climate change. We could just eat differently, of course, but let’s just be honest, most of us prefer to blame governments or corporations or rich people rather than make even the smallest lifestyle change. As it happens with almost all things related to new technology, the masses will slowly come around as early adopters extol the virtues of the new while the capitalists scurry in the background with their efficiencies and layoffs and demand curves to bring the price down, cent by cent, until it makes cents for everyone. Our kids will probably respond to the expression ‘cooking in its own fat’ with the same disgust I reserve for Manchester United highlights.
One last note here that is merely tangential to the main point. The catalyst for going to Burger King was, believe it or not, a commercial. I saw the advert during a helmet football game and very nearly went out for the sandwich at halftime. Alas, I fought off the initial urge and went a few weeks later, but it remains the only recent example I can think of where an advertisement directly led me to a purchase. Kudos to the marketing team at BK!
Jokes aside, my gut tells me (!) that by virtue of similar taste plant-based ‘meat’ will become a perfect substitute for meat. (Don’t ask me when, and let’s assume the CDC doesn’t declare it a carcinogen in two decades.) This would represent a massive development, possibly one of the few great Massive Developments that will happen in my lifetime, because it might usher in the end of meat consumption. With a good alternative available, it’s not hard to imagine a time a few decades in the future when people who still eat meat are regarded as that era’s racists. I'm looking forward to finding out at the nursing home - meat me at bingo, and let's discuss.
Overall, this technology is especially significant for those who see meat consumption as a major factor in climate change. We could just eat differently, of course, but let’s just be honest, most of us prefer to blame governments or corporations or rich people rather than make even the smallest lifestyle change. As it happens with almost all things related to new technology, the masses will slowly come around as early adopters extol the virtues of the new while the capitalists scurry in the background with their efficiencies and layoffs and demand curves to bring the price down, cent by cent, until it makes cents for everyone. Our kids will probably respond to the expression ‘cooking in its own fat’ with the same disgust I reserve for Manchester United highlights.
One last note here that is merely tangential to the main point. The catalyst for going to Burger King was, believe it or not, a commercial. I saw the advert during a helmet football game and very nearly went out for the sandwich at halftime. Alas, I fought off the initial urge and went a few weeks later, but it remains the only recent example I can think of where an advertisement directly led me to a purchase. Kudos to the marketing team at BK!
Friday, November 15, 2019
ordering fakeout
I’ve spent some time over the past couple of years thinking about the name I give at takeout. I’m sure you are familiar with this process, reader. You order a drink or a meal, give your name as you pay, and wait to hear your name as confirmation that the order is ready. It’s possibly associated with Starbucks (I don’t really keep a pulse on these things) but it’s common enough that I’m sure most folks living in the city will have encountered the system in one place or another.
The origins of the system are unclear to me. It closely resembles The Deli Ticket Method where a customer pulls a number from a kiosk and waits to hear the number. The deli system was so ubiquitous that I’ve heard people say ‘take a number like everyone else’ as a substitute for ‘please wait’. Takeout lines could have easily retained this feature without much confusion. I suppose there are some differences in the two systems (timing of arrival, possibility of doing other things during the interval, speed of order preparation, etc) but these differences don't explain why a name system was necessary for takeout.
I’m forced to conclude that folks just feel it’s more personal to use a name rather than a number. This is fine with me. I like names, including my own. But it introduces a new set of problems for certain people – like me. Is it Tim’s order, or Jim’s? And I'm not self-centered here, I recognize the same issue exists for the Erics and Derricks out there. And let's not forget Bob, in fact, if you see him, tell him that the sandwich isn't for him, it's for Rob. And those fries, those are for... Jen? Ben? Ken? Len? Wren is surely out of style, right… ?
The short version is that for the past few years I’ve been telling folks my name is Tim and I’ve spent the next fifteen minutes convinced of impending disaster. Honestly, those times when I had to repeat myself, I might as well have just walked out (no, it’s not... KIM… apparently the only Asian name in history). After all my suffering, I decided the only sensible solution was to come up with a fake name. I could use this name for takeout orders to eliminate any and all confusion. The ideal name would require two features – common enough to pronounce, not common enough for to share with a fellow diner.
I came up with a short list of strong candidates that fit the bill (but not Bill). I was ready to go but I kept running into one problem – I almost always forgot my fake names. I'm not talking about after I used it, I'm talking about at the counter. When it came down to it, if someone asked my name, I gave… my name. Turns out, lying in response to "What's your name?" is a really difficult task (especially when hungry). My problem was a disease with no cure.
One day, I was standing around waiting to hear ‘Tim’ for takeout. I passed the time by boring my friends with this exact story. At some point, one of us made the point – wouldn’t Timothy work? And it does, it so obviously does, that I was compelled to check if Timothy meant dumbass in French. How did I not think of this myself? The answer was right under my nose, all along! I’ve opted for this method on a semi-consistent basis these days and life is great, just great. Still, I do regret that I never remembered those fake names... pizza for WINSTON...
Oh, who am I kidding, I never would have remembered to go pick it up.
The origins of the system are unclear to me. It closely resembles The Deli Ticket Method where a customer pulls a number from a kiosk and waits to hear the number. The deli system was so ubiquitous that I’ve heard people say ‘take a number like everyone else’ as a substitute for ‘please wait’. Takeout lines could have easily retained this feature without much confusion. I suppose there are some differences in the two systems (timing of arrival, possibility of doing other things during the interval, speed of order preparation, etc) but these differences don't explain why a name system was necessary for takeout.
I’m forced to conclude that folks just feel it’s more personal to use a name rather than a number. This is fine with me. I like names, including my own. But it introduces a new set of problems for certain people – like me. Is it Tim’s order, or Jim’s? And I'm not self-centered here, I recognize the same issue exists for the Erics and Derricks out there. And let's not forget Bob, in fact, if you see him, tell him that the sandwich isn't for him, it's for Rob. And those fries, those are for... Jen? Ben? Ken? Len? Wren is surely out of style, right… ?
The short version is that for the past few years I’ve been telling folks my name is Tim and I’ve spent the next fifteen minutes convinced of impending disaster. Honestly, those times when I had to repeat myself, I might as well have just walked out (no, it’s not... KIM… apparently the only Asian name in history). After all my suffering, I decided the only sensible solution was to come up with a fake name. I could use this name for takeout orders to eliminate any and all confusion. The ideal name would require two features – common enough to pronounce, not common enough for to share with a fellow diner.
I came up with a short list of strong candidates that fit the bill (but not Bill). I was ready to go but I kept running into one problem – I almost always forgot my fake names. I'm not talking about after I used it, I'm talking about at the counter. When it came down to it, if someone asked my name, I gave… my name. Turns out, lying in response to "What's your name?" is a really difficult task (especially when hungry). My problem was a disease with no cure.
One day, I was standing around waiting to hear ‘Tim’ for takeout. I passed the time by boring my friends with this exact story. At some point, one of us made the point – wouldn’t Timothy work? And it does, it so obviously does, that I was compelled to check if Timothy meant dumbass in French. How did I not think of this myself? The answer was right under my nose, all along! I’ve opted for this method on a semi-consistent basis these days and life is great, just great. Still, I do regret that I never remembered those fake names... pizza for WINSTON...
Oh, who am I kidding, I never would have remembered to go pick it up.
Saturday, July 27, 2019
leftovers #5 – the 2018 december rereading list (arguments lingering over breakfast)
I skipped over some arguments for breakfast, both specific and general, in my most recent leftovers post that I thought I would examine in closer detail today.
First, one appealing aspect about the possible relationship between breakfast and jet lag is how although exposure to sunlight is a widely accepted factor in a regular sleep cycle, it seems to be insufficient in helping a traveler reset after crossing time zones. Outside of the broad categories of food and sunlight, there isn’t much that qualifies in terms of what enters the body, so if I felt that inputs mattered in the way the body functioned and it seemed that sunlight had little immediate effect on jetlag, then logically speaking the food I ate must have mattered a lot more.
A second thought I had about this relationship was how travelers in the Boston area often talk about how much easier they find it to fly west than east – at least in the context of avoiding jetlag. I thought this rule seemed arbitrary at best so I considered how the theory about breakfast and jetlag fit into this observation. I realized the key was how most seem to find it easier to wait a little while to eat versus forcing themselves to eat before ready (most diners will wait for a table at a restaurant, for example, while ‘not hungry’ is the most common reason I hear when someone refused to continue eating). Travelers who maintain a time-driven eating schedule while out west eat a little later compared to the local time of their home cities; when travelers go east, the same logic is reversed as people eat earlier compared to when they would eat back home. If the body does associate breakfast with wakeup, the experiences outlined by travelers supports the concept so long as you believe that people find it easier to stay in bed an extra hour until local breakfast time than they do rising before the early bird for that omelet and hash.
The third and final thought is a simple observation – it seems to me that most early risers who get out of bed each morning without apparent difficulty are the same zealots who talk about the importance of breakfast. Do they rise early because of breakfast or do they breakfast because they rose early? Like the chicken that lays those eventually scrambled eggs, I suppose at some point acknowledging that one comes from the other is enough – I’ll leave the details to the scientists, those brave men and women whose burdens of proof are a little more rigorous than my own standard of recalling what I did on a Thursday, once, and writing about it on this all-knowing space.
First, one appealing aspect about the possible relationship between breakfast and jet lag is how although exposure to sunlight is a widely accepted factor in a regular sleep cycle, it seems to be insufficient in helping a traveler reset after crossing time zones. Outside of the broad categories of food and sunlight, there isn’t much that qualifies in terms of what enters the body, so if I felt that inputs mattered in the way the body functioned and it seemed that sunlight had little immediate effect on jetlag, then logically speaking the food I ate must have mattered a lot more.
A second thought I had about this relationship was how travelers in the Boston area often talk about how much easier they find it to fly west than east – at least in the context of avoiding jetlag. I thought this rule seemed arbitrary at best so I considered how the theory about breakfast and jetlag fit into this observation. I realized the key was how most seem to find it easier to wait a little while to eat versus forcing themselves to eat before ready (most diners will wait for a table at a restaurant, for example, while ‘not hungry’ is the most common reason I hear when someone refused to continue eating). Travelers who maintain a time-driven eating schedule while out west eat a little later compared to the local time of their home cities; when travelers go east, the same logic is reversed as people eat earlier compared to when they would eat back home. If the body does associate breakfast with wakeup, the experiences outlined by travelers supports the concept so long as you believe that people find it easier to stay in bed an extra hour until local breakfast time than they do rising before the early bird for that omelet and hash.
The third and final thought is a simple observation – it seems to me that most early risers who get out of bed each morning without apparent difficulty are the same zealots who talk about the importance of breakfast. Do they rise early because of breakfast or do they breakfast because they rose early? Like the chicken that lays those eventually scrambled eggs, I suppose at some point acknowledging that one comes from the other is enough – I’ll leave the details to the scientists, those brave men and women whose burdens of proof are a little more rigorous than my own standard of recalling what I did on a Thursday, once, and writing about it on this all-knowing space.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
leftovers #4 – the 2018 december rereading list (the use of breakfast)
In my most recent leftover, I gave some added insight into why I decided to reduce my coffee consumption. Today, I’d like to do a similar breakdown for why I resumed eating breakfast on certain select occasions.
This change is unlike most of the changes I make to my routines. Usually, I make a change because the evidence is clear that the change would directly benefit me. With breakfast, the evidence isn’t there, and the result is that my changes more resemble self-experimentation than they do self-improvement. To keep myself on track through such a change, I have to pay very close attention to my experience and analyze my decisions so that I’m attributing outcomes to the correct inputs.
The breakfast idea formed slowly in my mind over the past few years as I read about the various research and studies being conducted about fasting. There is nothing I would call conclusive about the field (and given how long humans live, there probably will not be in my lifetime) but from what I’ve read I feel pretty confident about the following conclusions.
First, our body reacts anytime we eat a meal. This is built up from understanding that the body reacts anytime we consume specific food or drink. We have a good understanding of how certain consumption leads to certain results – drinking excess alcohol leads to drunkenness (I confirmed this myself so no need to thank me, science), consuming an allergen leads to sickness, and so on. Our understanding of the details weakens as we think more broadly but I feel the same concept holds as we discard the specific for the general – our body changes after a meal.
Second, our body adjusts to what we eat. Again, this general conclusion is built up from widely held understandings from a daily level. A good example is how people who regularly consume too much caffeine or alcohol react physically when they suddenly go without while those who abstain experience no symptoms throughout a sober life. Again, though the specifics are important, I feel that the general idea holds up as we think about meals instead of foods and lifetime health instead of daily responses and reactions.
Third, an extended fasting period is like hitting the reset button on the body’s regulatory systems. Hunger is a good example here – it’s designed to remind us about eating but hunger’s behavior during a fast is a little counter-intuitive. Basically, it seems that hunger levels rise and fall during a fast, an observation that I feel violates the general understanding that hunger rises continually over time until it reaches (and remains) at a peak level. It’s almost like the body gives up on being fed and turns its attention to using resources in other ways, only to return later with a greater and more urgent sense of hunger.
The hunger example makes a point about the relationship between food consumption and our body’s systems – a lot of what happens inside us operates differently when we change what we put into our bodies. This is why I was intrigued a number of years ago when I read about research into the relationship between food consumption and jet lag. One specific method asked travelers to fast for twenty-four hours before breaking the fast with a meal eaten at 9AM local time on the day before departure to their eventual destination. The idea was that jet lag might be overcome if the body was used to having a fast broken with a breakfast that matched up to the rhythm of local time.
I’m not sure what the result of the study was but I thought the idea lined up really well with what I accepted about how my body worked. I’ve always found that eating certain foods near bedtime would prevent me from falling asleep and that not every meal consumed in the morning hours was treated equally by my digestive system. I’ve recognized how the patterns and routines of my life would trigger a sense of hunger when I walked past a certain place or realized the clock was at a certain hour and I’ve known that a force more powerful than the incessant beeps from my alarm controls my sleep cycle. In short, I feel safe concluding that what goes into the body influences a lot about how the body operates and therefore the idea that the timing of breakfast mattered in some yet unproven way about jetlag immediately captured my imagination.
These wild thoughts, theories, and inferences were wandering around somewhere in my memory banks when I heard someone compare staying up too late at night to giving yourself jetlag. The comparison clicked right away for me and I instantly realized that I could run a self-experiment by making sure to eat anytime I was forcing myself awake after a late bedtime. The results are inconclusive, of course, as such experimental findings are always going to be, but I’ve found that the early meal has coincided with an improved ability to wake up naturally at the same time the ensuing day.
The toughest part of this method has not been waking up to eat the first early meal – who doesn’t like a little breakfast? – but abstaining from eating breakfast when I do finally get back on my desired sleep cycle. I suppose it goes back to one of my initial comments – the body adjusts to what it eats, and does so quickly, and despite the best intentions of my intellect that brute collaborator known as my stomach does nothing to make my return to a regular eating and sleeping schedule an easy, enjoyable, or comfortable one.
This change is unlike most of the changes I make to my routines. Usually, I make a change because the evidence is clear that the change would directly benefit me. With breakfast, the evidence isn’t there, and the result is that my changes more resemble self-experimentation than they do self-improvement. To keep myself on track through such a change, I have to pay very close attention to my experience and analyze my decisions so that I’m attributing outcomes to the correct inputs.
The breakfast idea formed slowly in my mind over the past few years as I read about the various research and studies being conducted about fasting. There is nothing I would call conclusive about the field (and given how long humans live, there probably will not be in my lifetime) but from what I’ve read I feel pretty confident about the following conclusions.
First, our body reacts anytime we eat a meal. This is built up from understanding that the body reacts anytime we consume specific food or drink. We have a good understanding of how certain consumption leads to certain results – drinking excess alcohol leads to drunkenness (I confirmed this myself so no need to thank me, science), consuming an allergen leads to sickness, and so on. Our understanding of the details weakens as we think more broadly but I feel the same concept holds as we discard the specific for the general – our body changes after a meal.
Second, our body adjusts to what we eat. Again, this general conclusion is built up from widely held understandings from a daily level. A good example is how people who regularly consume too much caffeine or alcohol react physically when they suddenly go without while those who abstain experience no symptoms throughout a sober life. Again, though the specifics are important, I feel that the general idea holds up as we think about meals instead of foods and lifetime health instead of daily responses and reactions.
Third, an extended fasting period is like hitting the reset button on the body’s regulatory systems. Hunger is a good example here – it’s designed to remind us about eating but hunger’s behavior during a fast is a little counter-intuitive. Basically, it seems that hunger levels rise and fall during a fast, an observation that I feel violates the general understanding that hunger rises continually over time until it reaches (and remains) at a peak level. It’s almost like the body gives up on being fed and turns its attention to using resources in other ways, only to return later with a greater and more urgent sense of hunger.
The hunger example makes a point about the relationship between food consumption and our body’s systems – a lot of what happens inside us operates differently when we change what we put into our bodies. This is why I was intrigued a number of years ago when I read about research into the relationship between food consumption and jet lag. One specific method asked travelers to fast for twenty-four hours before breaking the fast with a meal eaten at 9AM local time on the day before departure to their eventual destination. The idea was that jet lag might be overcome if the body was used to having a fast broken with a breakfast that matched up to the rhythm of local time.
I’m not sure what the result of the study was but I thought the idea lined up really well with what I accepted about how my body worked. I’ve always found that eating certain foods near bedtime would prevent me from falling asleep and that not every meal consumed in the morning hours was treated equally by my digestive system. I’ve recognized how the patterns and routines of my life would trigger a sense of hunger when I walked past a certain place or realized the clock was at a certain hour and I’ve known that a force more powerful than the incessant beeps from my alarm controls my sleep cycle. In short, I feel safe concluding that what goes into the body influences a lot about how the body operates and therefore the idea that the timing of breakfast mattered in some yet unproven way about jetlag immediately captured my imagination.
These wild thoughts, theories, and inferences were wandering around somewhere in my memory banks when I heard someone compare staying up too late at night to giving yourself jetlag. The comparison clicked right away for me and I instantly realized that I could run a self-experiment by making sure to eat anytime I was forcing myself awake after a late bedtime. The results are inconclusive, of course, as such experimental findings are always going to be, but I’ve found that the early meal has coincided with an improved ability to wake up naturally at the same time the ensuing day.
The toughest part of this method has not been waking up to eat the first early meal – who doesn’t like a little breakfast? – but abstaining from eating breakfast when I do finally get back on my desired sleep cycle. I suppose it goes back to one of my initial comments – the body adjusts to what it eats, and does so quickly, and despite the best intentions of my intellect that brute collaborator known as my stomach does nothing to make my return to a regular eating and sleeping schedule an easy, enjoyable, or comfortable one.
Friday, March 22, 2019
leftovers #4.1 – the 2018 april newsletter (gut check)
I referenced a number of false starts in my follow up post just a few days ago that I want to briefly expand on today. One specific tactic I mentioned around a year ago in the original post centered around a theory about gut bacteria, or in my case a lack of it. The basic idea behind this (still in progress) science is that bacteria in the gut play a vital role in digestive health and we can influence the level of bacteria with our dieting decisions. Since this meant I only had to eat a cup or so of yogurt every night, I decided to try it and see how it went.
Initially, the yogurt seemed to help. It’s even possible that it did help, I suppose, but I can’t be sure about that (and it certainly didn’t solve the problem like chugging glasses of water did). As I mentioned at the end of my leftovers post, the idea to drink more water didn’t just help the problem, it solved the problem, so whatever little bit of help the yogurt did doesn’t seem very relevant to me in hindsight.
Of course, the yogurt experiment was hardly a waste of time. Again, its easy implementation made it a winning idea from the start. I think it’s always a good idea to try new things if they are easy to implement because it gives me a low cost way to have fresh experiences and positions me to learn from the unexpected things that occur in the process.
The big result of the yogurt experiment was the way it changed my end of the day meal. In the past, I’d almost always eaten a meal resembling a proper dinner when I returned home for the night. This sometimes meant my bedtime got pushed back due to the associated admin of dinner – cooking, cleaning, and so on. It also meant I ate more in general because dinner tended to be my largest meal of the day. When I started eating yogurt at the end of the day, there were occasional nights when I would return home and realize I wasn’t particularly hungry and on these nights I would eat only a cup of yogurt. I guess these occasions introduced the idea of eating just a cup of yogurt into my mind because I soon found myself seeing how I would do if I ate yogurt for dinner instead of preparing a larger meal. To my surprise, this wasn’t a problem at all, so I made the switch sometime in the late summer and to this day I continue eating just a cup of yogurt for dinner on those nights when I used to eat a full dinner.
This change has necessitated some associated adjustments, of course, and these are important – it’s not about actions but interactions, right? One adjustment was to increase my lunch by a small degree, maybe twenty percent or so, to help make up for some of what I’d stopped eating at night. I also started eating lunch later in the day because it’s easier for me to avoid eating until mid afternoon than it is for me to ignore being hungry when I get home. It seems like I’m eating less in general, which I think is good (though I admit I’m not keeping close track). The biggest change is something I’ve highlighted in an earlier leftover within this series – since I now skip the process of preparing and cleaning up after dinner, I have less to do before bedtime and can therefore meet my sleep goals.
Initially, the yogurt seemed to help. It’s even possible that it did help, I suppose, but I can’t be sure about that (and it certainly didn’t solve the problem like chugging glasses of water did). As I mentioned at the end of my leftovers post, the idea to drink more water didn’t just help the problem, it solved the problem, so whatever little bit of help the yogurt did doesn’t seem very relevant to me in hindsight.
Of course, the yogurt experiment was hardly a waste of time. Again, its easy implementation made it a winning idea from the start. I think it’s always a good idea to try new things if they are easy to implement because it gives me a low cost way to have fresh experiences and positions me to learn from the unexpected things that occur in the process.
The big result of the yogurt experiment was the way it changed my end of the day meal. In the past, I’d almost always eaten a meal resembling a proper dinner when I returned home for the night. This sometimes meant my bedtime got pushed back due to the associated admin of dinner – cooking, cleaning, and so on. It also meant I ate more in general because dinner tended to be my largest meal of the day. When I started eating yogurt at the end of the day, there were occasional nights when I would return home and realize I wasn’t particularly hungry and on these nights I would eat only a cup of yogurt. I guess these occasions introduced the idea of eating just a cup of yogurt into my mind because I soon found myself seeing how I would do if I ate yogurt for dinner instead of preparing a larger meal. To my surprise, this wasn’t a problem at all, so I made the switch sometime in the late summer and to this day I continue eating just a cup of yogurt for dinner on those nights when I used to eat a full dinner.
This change has necessitated some associated adjustments, of course, and these are important – it’s not about actions but interactions, right? One adjustment was to increase my lunch by a small degree, maybe twenty percent or so, to help make up for some of what I’d stopped eating at night. I also started eating lunch later in the day because it’s easier for me to avoid eating until mid afternoon than it is for me to ignore being hungry when I get home. It seems like I’m eating less in general, which I think is good (though I admit I’m not keeping close track). The biggest change is something I’ve highlighted in an earlier leftover within this series – since I now skip the process of preparing and cleaning up after dinner, I have less to do before bedtime and can therefore meet my sleep goals.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
leftovers #4 – the 2018 april newsletter (digestive health)
The biggest immediate problem I had when I returned to work was how my stomach seemed to hurt. This would happen only at work and the pain usually started sometime around the early afternoon. It’s hard for me to put the pain into context because I never had regular stomachaches during the first three decades of my life. On a good day I would merely feel bloated while on a bad day I would actually have a hard time sitting down because of the way it put pressure on my stomach. Let’s say, overall, it wasn’t quite as bad as the flu but that there would have been dire consequences for anyone who had hit me in the gut.
Anyway, I did what a responsible adult does in this situation and visited Professor Google over at Internet University. Google immediately consulted his longtime associate, Web MD, and we were off and running on a wild goose chase to figure out what was going on. There were a number of good early candidates that seemed to fit about 75% of my situation – IBS, appendicitis, maybe an allergy (peanut, soy, gluten, full-time employment). Each new possibility I looked into was a good reminder of what diagnostic medicine is like on the Good Ol’ Interwebs – a moment of pattern recognition followed by some surface similarities before a series of specific symptoms that don’t really apply to you rule out the condition. It was like the internet was testing my willingness to suspend disbelief – you think you’re gluten intolerant even though you have a slice of pizza every week at Haymarket?
The breakthrough moment came one morning after I’d drank a few too many beers the night before. I realized during the day that my stomach hurt the same way it did while I was at work. The only thing I knew about hangovers was that they indicated dehydration so I decided the next time my stomach hurt I would try to set a world record for water consumption and pay attention to what ensued. Sure enough, the water did the trick, and I’ve generally felt pretty good about my gut health since that day.
It’s hard to look back on this time today and think I learned anything significant. I obviously learned that I should drink more water but that hardly qualifies as a lesson – I’ve been applying that solution to problems for my entire life. I suppose maybe the important result to focus on here is that anytime I have a problem related to food or consumption I should make sure to rule out more water as a solution before trying anything else.
Footnotes / endnote / prediction?
0. Coming up...
I wrote most of this post last summer and it shows - I think I actually figured out the cause of all this and I intend to share it (eventually) in an upcoming proper admin post.
Anyway, I did what a responsible adult does in this situation and visited Professor Google over at Internet University. Google immediately consulted his longtime associate, Web MD, and we were off and running on a wild goose chase to figure out what was going on. There were a number of good early candidates that seemed to fit about 75% of my situation – IBS, appendicitis, maybe an allergy (peanut, soy, gluten, full-time employment). Each new possibility I looked into was a good reminder of what diagnostic medicine is like on the Good Ol’ Interwebs – a moment of pattern recognition followed by some surface similarities before a series of specific symptoms that don’t really apply to you rule out the condition. It was like the internet was testing my willingness to suspend disbelief – you think you’re gluten intolerant even though you have a slice of pizza every week at Haymarket?
The breakthrough moment came one morning after I’d drank a few too many beers the night before. I realized during the day that my stomach hurt the same way it did while I was at work. The only thing I knew about hangovers was that they indicated dehydration so I decided the next time my stomach hurt I would try to set a world record for water consumption and pay attention to what ensued. Sure enough, the water did the trick, and I’ve generally felt pretty good about my gut health since that day.
It’s hard to look back on this time today and think I learned anything significant. I obviously learned that I should drink more water but that hardly qualifies as a lesson – I’ve been applying that solution to problems for my entire life. I suppose maybe the important result to focus on here is that anytime I have a problem related to food or consumption I should make sure to rule out more water as a solution before trying anything else.
Footnotes / endnote / prediction?
0. Coming up...
I wrote most of this post last summer and it shows - I think I actually figured out the cause of all this and I intend to share it (eventually) in an upcoming proper admin post.
Monday, February 18, 2019
the first touch
One of my consistently bad analogies is how I board the subway in the same way a technically skilled soccer player receives a pass. My goal on the subway is to get off the subway as quickly as possible – therefore, I always board the train where I expect the door to be closest to the exit at my destination. This is like a soccer player’s ‘first touch’, the term for how players tap or guide the ball as they receive a pass. A good first touch positions the ball for the fastest transition to the next movement. My analogy comes in how I describe boarding the subway as a technique to best position myself for the next movement – fleeing the subway.
My favorite part of this analogy is how most players with a poor first touch are routinely derided for being unskilled players. I think about this when I watch my fellow passengers board the subway with no thought to how their technique might simplify the future. Surely, a skilled rider would consider the future implications of each movement? The proof of my approach is in how I always stroll unhurried through the subway exits a few paces ahead of a rumbling herd of my fellow passengers, I benefiting from my impeccable ‘first touch’ while everyone behind me stampedes desperately down the platform in a race to fill the frame of the exit gate I’d just vacated.
Occasionally, station architecture prevents my first touch from being enough to win me the race out of the station. This happens frequently at Broadway station in South Boston. Though I am frequently among the first to reach the escalator, my fellow passengers do eventually catch up to me somewhere on the way up and demonstrate their agricultural interpretation of ‘the first touch’ by shoving me aside as they storm up to the street. I suppose this extends my analogy further as it is reminiscent of how soccer players often make up for the lack of a graceful ‘first touch’ with a physical, hard-charging style of play.
A good example of such an incident came last month. I was at my usual place at the head of the Broadway escalator, standing on the right hand side. I could feel the usual rumble of uncultured feet on the escalator behind me as the passengers who foolishly saw no connection between soccer and the subway reached the escalator. And then… BOOM… the first reckless passenger demonstrated his understanding of ‘the first touch’ by slamming into my left shoulder and driving me into the moving handrail of the escalator.
He’ll probably captain us at the next World Cup, I thought, as I regained my balance and gathered myself for the rest of the ride. And what kind of hurry was he in to do THAT, I wondered, as I stepped onto the street at the top of the escalator.
It took just a few moments before I had my answer. A couple of storefronts down from the station is a Subway restaurant (‘restaurant’). When I glanced into the window, I saw my assailant standing in line, breathing heavily from his sprint, undoubtedly about to complain that the Meatball Marinara footlong sandwich cost 20% more now than it did before Southie gentrified. It occurred to me at that moment that on a planet of seven billion people, there was always going to be at least one person who wanted nothing more than to get out of the subway ASAP just to get to a Subway ASAP. I suppose this isn’t very different from how on a planet of seven billion people, there was always going to be at least one person who thought the way he boarded the subway was comparable to how Lionel Messi received passes. We might not appear to have anything in common, I suppose, but at least we're both single-minded about our desire to escape the subway as quickly as possible.
My favorite part of this analogy is how most players with a poor first touch are routinely derided for being unskilled players. I think about this when I watch my fellow passengers board the subway with no thought to how their technique might simplify the future. Surely, a skilled rider would consider the future implications of each movement? The proof of my approach is in how I always stroll unhurried through the subway exits a few paces ahead of a rumbling herd of my fellow passengers, I benefiting from my impeccable ‘first touch’ while everyone behind me stampedes desperately down the platform in a race to fill the frame of the exit gate I’d just vacated.
Occasionally, station architecture prevents my first touch from being enough to win me the race out of the station. This happens frequently at Broadway station in South Boston. Though I am frequently among the first to reach the escalator, my fellow passengers do eventually catch up to me somewhere on the way up and demonstrate their agricultural interpretation of ‘the first touch’ by shoving me aside as they storm up to the street. I suppose this extends my analogy further as it is reminiscent of how soccer players often make up for the lack of a graceful ‘first touch’ with a physical, hard-charging style of play.
A good example of such an incident came last month. I was at my usual place at the head of the Broadway escalator, standing on the right hand side. I could feel the usual rumble of uncultured feet on the escalator behind me as the passengers who foolishly saw no connection between soccer and the subway reached the escalator. And then… BOOM… the first reckless passenger demonstrated his understanding of ‘the first touch’ by slamming into my left shoulder and driving me into the moving handrail of the escalator.
He’ll probably captain us at the next World Cup, I thought, as I regained my balance and gathered myself for the rest of the ride. And what kind of hurry was he in to do THAT, I wondered, as I stepped onto the street at the top of the escalator.
It took just a few moments before I had my answer. A couple of storefronts down from the station is a Subway restaurant (‘restaurant’). When I glanced into the window, I saw my assailant standing in line, breathing heavily from his sprint, undoubtedly about to complain that the Meatball Marinara footlong sandwich cost 20% more now than it did before Southie gentrified. It occurred to me at that moment that on a planet of seven billion people, there was always going to be at least one person who wanted nothing more than to get out of the subway ASAP just to get to a Subway ASAP. I suppose this isn’t very different from how on a planet of seven billion people, there was always going to be at least one person who thought the way he boarded the subway was comparable to how Lionel Messi received passes. We might not appear to have anything in common, I suppose, but at least we're both single-minded about our desire to escape the subway as quickly as possible.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
leftovers – the single garbage bag (how I separate the trash)
My original thought for this post was to talk about a change I did make as it related to my trash and how it allowed me to accumulate more trash before I brought my bag down to the curb. However, I realized early on in the post that the problem was how one person, living alone, is going to have a really difficult time filling up a trash bag, and I figured this observation was much more interesting than how I threw out my trash.
Those interested in reading more about such problems can refer to this Onion article I enjoyed a few years ago.
Those interested in reading more about such problems can refer to this Onion article I enjoyed a few years ago.
Monday, February 4, 2019
the single garbage bag
Longtime readers will know (or simply suspect) that I try to minimize waste whenever possible. This isn’t done out of loyalty to some underlying mission, cause, or purpose. It just comes naturally to me to try to get the most out of what I have. As a result, over the years I’ve squeezed a lot more juice out of lemons that others probably would have given up on. (There is probably no better testament to my approach than the very computer I’m using as I type this sentence, an ancient Apple laptop that I first booted up in 2006, but that’s another matter.)
However, despite all my ranting and raving about waste efficiency, there has been one area over the years where I’ve always been relatively wasteful – trash. To be more specific, I’ve been consistently wasteful in the way I throw out my trash because I often leave a single half-filled bag on the curb for pickup. This is of course due to the lack of waste I produce but I cannot fail to note the irony of my predicament – if I do everything I can to minimize waste, then I’m doomed to waste space in the trash bag.
I’m reminded of my wastefulness every time my neighborhood has a trash pickup. I’ll wake up bright and early, collect all the final bits of trash, and bring my perfectly sealed bag downstairs to the curb. As I lay my trash down, I’ll often realize how embarrassingly light it appears alongside the other bulging bags produced by my neighbors. From a distance, it probably looks like some forgetful pizza guy left his empty carrier on the sidewalk. I can imagine the pickup guys later in the day laughing as they toss the sorriest bag on the block into the back of their truck – hey, anyone need a doormat? – or – what was this supposed to be, a balloon?
What’s a guy to do when his inability to waste leads to so much waste? I suppose one approach is to wait until the trash bag I use on pickup day is completely full before I bring it down. This isn’t a bad strategy, reader, but it’s also one I’ve tried in the past. How did it go, you might ask? Let’s put it this way – my joke about having a pet mouse didn’t write itself. In fact, my paranoia about rodents is so high that I now freeze any food trash so that the scent of rotting vegetables doesn’t bring back my furry buddies for a slumber party.
Another way could be to buy smaller trash bags. This is actually a good idea, and should be feasible. Unfortunately, reader, if there is a Beacon Hill establishment that sells smaller trash bags, I’d like to know about it. Until then, a version of the joke I made when my cousins visited from Japan applies – there’s regular size, and then there’s America size. In Beacon Hill, the only available trash bags are in America size.
I guess the only option left for this lean, green, waste-efficient machine is to somehow produce more trash. I have a hunch on how I might do this, reader, or at least what such trash might look like, because sometimes these bulging bags I’m so mindful of burst open like a ripening fruit and scatter their envied goodness all over the cobblestone and pageantry and history of Beacon Hill. On these mornings, I can see from my window everything that’s missing from my bag – takeout containers, worn out dog leashes, packaging for broken toys, and outgrown tiny clothing. I see what makes my half-filled bag feel wasted when I see this trash of a life spent at home. I leave my deflated bag next to the trash and I walk on, away from home, where the time I spend alone always feels like time being wasted.
However, despite all my ranting and raving about waste efficiency, there has been one area over the years where I’ve always been relatively wasteful – trash. To be more specific, I’ve been consistently wasteful in the way I throw out my trash because I often leave a single half-filled bag on the curb for pickup. This is of course due to the lack of waste I produce but I cannot fail to note the irony of my predicament – if I do everything I can to minimize waste, then I’m doomed to waste space in the trash bag.
I’m reminded of my wastefulness every time my neighborhood has a trash pickup. I’ll wake up bright and early, collect all the final bits of trash, and bring my perfectly sealed bag downstairs to the curb. As I lay my trash down, I’ll often realize how embarrassingly light it appears alongside the other bulging bags produced by my neighbors. From a distance, it probably looks like some forgetful pizza guy left his empty carrier on the sidewalk. I can imagine the pickup guys later in the day laughing as they toss the sorriest bag on the block into the back of their truck – hey, anyone need a doormat? – or – what was this supposed to be, a balloon?
What’s a guy to do when his inability to waste leads to so much waste? I suppose one approach is to wait until the trash bag I use on pickup day is completely full before I bring it down. This isn’t a bad strategy, reader, but it’s also one I’ve tried in the past. How did it go, you might ask? Let’s put it this way – my joke about having a pet mouse didn’t write itself. In fact, my paranoia about rodents is so high that I now freeze any food trash so that the scent of rotting vegetables doesn’t bring back my furry buddies for a slumber party.
Another way could be to buy smaller trash bags. This is actually a good idea, and should be feasible. Unfortunately, reader, if there is a Beacon Hill establishment that sells smaller trash bags, I’d like to know about it. Until then, a version of the joke I made when my cousins visited from Japan applies – there’s regular size, and then there’s America size. In Beacon Hill, the only available trash bags are in America size.
I guess the only option left for this lean, green, waste-efficient machine is to somehow produce more trash. I have a hunch on how I might do this, reader, or at least what such trash might look like, because sometimes these bulging bags I’m so mindful of burst open like a ripening fruit and scatter their envied goodness all over the cobblestone and pageantry and history of Beacon Hill. On these mornings, I can see from my window everything that’s missing from my bag – takeout containers, worn out dog leashes, packaging for broken toys, and outgrown tiny clothing. I see what makes my half-filled bag feel wasted when I see this trash of a life spent at home. I leave my deflated bag next to the trash and I walk on, away from home, where the time I spend alone always feels like time being wasted.
Friday, December 7, 2018
fast food is too chicken to try harder
The other day, I walked past a fast food restaurant. There was a poster in the front window advertising a new chicken sandwich – made with 100% real chicken.
I stopped and took a closer look. Was this a serious sign? I glanced around me at all the people who were streaming past, seemingly uninterested in this announcement. Apparently, the sign was real and its news inconsequential.
I was bothered. Is 100% real chicken now such an accomplishment that it can be placed boastfully on a colorful poster? What the cluck? Are there no standards anymore?
Apparently not.
I stopped and took a closer look. Was this a serious sign? I glanced around me at all the people who were streaming past, seemingly uninterested in this announcement. Apparently, the sign was real and its news inconsequential.
I was bothered. Is 100% real chicken now such an accomplishment that it can be placed boastfully on a colorful poster? What the cluck? Are there no standards anymore?
Apparently not.
Monday, December 3, 2018
is this thing on?
Last week, I went over to a friend’s apartment for dinner. After the meal had finished cooking, he asked his wife if the oven was off. The innocent question was one I’d heard many times before and one I think makes a lot of sense to ask. After all, the oven is like the lights in a house – if it isn’t being used, keeping it on would be a waste of resources.
But if the oven were still on, would it have been a big deal? Based on some past experiences, the reactions I’ve witnessed others have to the oven ‘still being on’ would suggest that yes, leaving the oven on is a BIG DEAL. I’ve seen people descend into a semi-panic when they find out the oven’s been left on for even a few minutes. There is something productive about this reaction because each minute an oven is left on makes it more likely that it will be left on for too long and eventually result in some kind of unwanted domestic disaster. I guess this leads me to the question, though, of how long an oven must be left on before it is officially on for too long.
My hunch? It is probably a lot longer than most people would guess (and certainly a lot longer than most reactions to the discovery of a left-on oven would suggest). The key to thinking about this is to consider what’s in the oven. Usually, the hysterical reactions to the left-on oven occur solely because there is nothing inside the oven. But if something is in the oven – even just something small like a muffin or a potato – then it usually isn’t considered a big deal.
I think this distinction is a little odd. Does it really matter if something is in the oven? I think an oven is actually more dangerous if something is inside because anything can catch fire if it is left in the oven for too long. An empty oven, on the other hand, has nothing inside of it to set on fire. It’s basically the equivalent of a really bad heating system – you might be cold but you probably aren’t going to have to call the fire department.
Now, don’t get me wrong here, reader. A still-on oven is a risk in the same way having anything really hot to the touch sitting around in your living area is a risk. But in terms of its direct threat to a dwelling’s well being? I think I’d rather an empty oven than one with a highly flammable (inflammable?) dinner burning up inside.
But if the oven were still on, would it have been a big deal? Based on some past experiences, the reactions I’ve witnessed others have to the oven ‘still being on’ would suggest that yes, leaving the oven on is a BIG DEAL. I’ve seen people descend into a semi-panic when they find out the oven’s been left on for even a few minutes. There is something productive about this reaction because each minute an oven is left on makes it more likely that it will be left on for too long and eventually result in some kind of unwanted domestic disaster. I guess this leads me to the question, though, of how long an oven must be left on before it is officially on for too long.
My hunch? It is probably a lot longer than most people would guess (and certainly a lot longer than most reactions to the discovery of a left-on oven would suggest). The key to thinking about this is to consider what’s in the oven. Usually, the hysterical reactions to the left-on oven occur solely because there is nothing inside the oven. But if something is in the oven – even just something small like a muffin or a potato – then it usually isn’t considered a big deal.
I think this distinction is a little odd. Does it really matter if something is in the oven? I think an oven is actually more dangerous if something is inside because anything can catch fire if it is left in the oven for too long. An empty oven, on the other hand, has nothing inside of it to set on fire. It’s basically the equivalent of a really bad heating system – you might be cold but you probably aren’t going to have to call the fire department.
Now, don’t get me wrong here, reader. A still-on oven is a risk in the same way having anything really hot to the touch sitting around in your living area is a risk. But in terms of its direct threat to a dwelling’s well being? I think I’d rather an empty oven than one with a highly flammable (inflammable?) dinner burning up inside.
Monday, November 19, 2018
only a perfect gentleman would fall in love with this stripper
I walked past a display window this morning, the same window I stroll past on most weekdays. However, for the first time, a product caught my eye. I did not immediately register what I saw and turned around to take a closer look.
'A kale stripper,' I muttered to myself as I pressed my nose to the glass.
Reader, no surprises coming - this product is exactly what it sounds like. It strips kale. Surely not, you ask? Surely so, I'm saddened to report.
Kale, like almost anything, is perfectly fine eaten whole. And like any leafy green, nature prepared it perfectly for manipulation and, dare I say, stripping by our weak fingers and thumbs. What this product does which a fairly dedicated amateur cook cannot accomplish in eleven seconds is beyond me. But hey, the holidays are coming, and if we need help with anything, it's finding some way to test your friends or family with a gift that, surely, no reasonable person could pretend to like.
'A kale stripper,' I muttered to myself as I pressed my nose to the glass.
Reader, no surprises coming - this product is exactly what it sounds like. It strips kale. Surely not, you ask? Surely so, I'm saddened to report.
Kale, like almost anything, is perfectly fine eaten whole. And like any leafy green, nature prepared it perfectly for manipulation and, dare I say, stripping by our weak fingers and thumbs. What this product does which a fairly dedicated amateur cook cannot accomplish in eleven seconds is beyond me. But hey, the holidays are coming, and if we need help with anything, it's finding some way to test your friends or family with a gift that, surely, no reasonable person could pretend to like.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
managerial game theory
In a recent series of posts, The Business Bro detailed the various signals a manager can receive from management or employees regarding an organization’s imminent decline. He then broke down the different responses in meticulous detail to come up with the best option for each case.
Here is a summary of those signals and the recommended options:
If management correctly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking long-term and play politics if you are thinking short-term
If management incorrectly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if your team is strong
If employees correctly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if the market is weak
If employees incorrectly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking short-term and play politics if you are thinking long-term
The thought process employed by The BB brought me back to a subject I hadn’t thought very much about since college – game theory. It was a welcome return, however, because game theory was my favorite economics class.
The thing I initially liked the most about game theory was how its great complexity could be simplified with meticulous care and effort. In the BB’s recent example, a very complex scenario involving multiple factors is resolved by asking a series of simple questions. Structurally, these questions are basically yes-no – for example, are market conditions favorable for the organization? – or – is the team performing well? There are also other questions that break down into simple categories – is your primary motivation short or long term? Once all these questions are answered, it becomes easy enough to make a flowchart or decision tree that helps lead to the right conclusion.
By the time I finished the course, I found that the subtler aspects of game theory were becoming the most appealing to me. One especially important lesson was how knowing that the presence of one factor can render other considerations irrelevant. In everyday terms, what his means is that if you select option A for one factor, it might mean your decision between option C or D for some other factor has no effect on the final outcome.
This subtlety is very difficult to grasp because it challenges the natural human impulse to think of everything linearly. To put it another way, it doesn’t help that the natural tendency is to reframe a non-linear concept into a linear pattern just to make it a little easier to understand. A person who points out, for example, that the component articles of clothing in an outfit can’t just be rearranged to go with every other part of a wardrobe will always encounter someone who points out that this is the same thing as saying if a certain shirt is selected, it eliminates all the pants that don’t go with it. This is a good point if you don’t think about clothing in terms of outfits but it isn’t getting at the right way of thinking at all if the only way you conceive of getting dressed is by thinking about outfits.
Another metaphorical way to think about this is to consider ways to order a pizza. Let’s say you love pepperoni and always prefer this as your topping of choice. However, if you go to a vegetarian restaurant, this lifelong commitment won’t matter – though you still abstractly choose pepperoni (because you always do) the choice to go to a vegetarian pizza place took pepperoni off the list of realistic final pizza outcomes. So, you end up with the same dish as someone who always abstractly chooses fried cauliflower (your backup choice) (1).
The problem with the analogy is that the structure of the decision is still linear – you go to the restaurant first, then you make a decision about a topping. The linearity implied by the ‘if-then’ structure is an illusion that masks preferences because even if some decisions are rendered irrelevant by other decisions it doesn't mean that people don't maintain their preferences. To put it another way, game theory encourages looking at decisions in a simultaneous rather than linear way whenever there are multiple factors that go into a decision. This way of thinking helped me see that a lot of 'if-then' decision making was a narrative that explained very little about how people actually make decisions.
I’m describing all of this game theory here because I think the manager role is very conducive to someone who thinks like this. A manager who makes decisions in a linear way says first I do A over B, then I'll wait a little while before choosing C or D. This is OK ingame theory but can lead a manager away from sound principles because a manager in this mode of thinking is always open to changing course given a new detail. This is fine if done sparingly but a manager who regularly breaks his or her word will quickly lose the trust of the team and find it difficult to complete long-term projects.
A manager who makes decisions as independently as possible will say I choose A over B and also C over D. Then, the manager would think about the implications of A and C interacting together to understand the most likely outcome. This style of thinking helps managers separate the relevant from the trivial. As I noted above, sometimes it doesn't matter what one factor is if another is present. A manager who chooses A and C might know that if E suddenly becomes F, it doesn’t change the plan in any relevant way because the presence of both A and C have set the course of action in stone irrespective of how the choice between E and F is made. A manager who chose C based on E, however, might reevaluate the plan when E becomes F because this manager will not recognize that the interaction of A and C render the change from E to F irrelevant.
If this sounds complex, well, it should be – complexity is a trait common to both game theory and the manager role. We're talking about stuff that you only learn at universities and jobs people do after decades as functional adults - if you thought it was supposed to be easy, I sadly inform you that you are mistaken. Like game theory, the manager role has been subject to gross oversimplification. People who think linearly think of the manager role as setting goals, keeping teams busy, and responding to new details with the same urgency as a fire chief responds to a 911 call. In the same way, people who think linearly conceive of game theory as a series of decision trees where A leads to B, or possibly C, in which case D.
These oversimplifications are accurate in the sense that they are true for very simple examples that anyone can understand on day one. However, the reality of game theory is a lot like managing – actions matter far less than interactions. A manager who understands that choosing A over B has implication on future decisions is on the right track - the type of thinking required is not A, then C, but rather knowing how A impacts the feasibility of choosing C while considering how the two choices together might influence the eventual choice of E or F.
Footnotes / cold pizza…
0. One last analogy…
A nice metaphor for managing is that it is like juggling many balls where only a few are made of glass. The complexity comes in knowing which balls are made of glass and will therefore break if they fall. This is a helpful analogy but one that encourages the linear thinking I feel often hampers managers. A better analogy might be that sometimes the balls change from glass to rubber (and vice-versa) but unfortunately this version suffers from its non-resemblance to how juggling (or physics) actually works.
1. Technically speaking (technically, in the game theory sense)...
This metaphor is consistent with how a pooled equilibrium works. In a pooled equilibrium, people with difference preferences send the same signal and an observer is therefore unable to work out the true preferences based solely on reading the signal. In this example, two people might order fired cauliflower but for at least one person the true preference was pepperoni.
Here is a summary of those signals and the recommended options:
If management correctly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking long-term and play politics if you are thinking short-term
If management incorrectly predicts imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if your team is strong
If employees correctly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if the market is strong and play politics if the market is weak
If employees incorrectly predict imminent decline… focus on doing the job well if you are thinking short-term and play politics if you are thinking long-term
The thought process employed by The BB brought me back to a subject I hadn’t thought very much about since college – game theory. It was a welcome return, however, because game theory was my favorite economics class.
The thing I initially liked the most about game theory was how its great complexity could be simplified with meticulous care and effort. In the BB’s recent example, a very complex scenario involving multiple factors is resolved by asking a series of simple questions. Structurally, these questions are basically yes-no – for example, are market conditions favorable for the organization? – or – is the team performing well? There are also other questions that break down into simple categories – is your primary motivation short or long term? Once all these questions are answered, it becomes easy enough to make a flowchart or decision tree that helps lead to the right conclusion.
By the time I finished the course, I found that the subtler aspects of game theory were becoming the most appealing to me. One especially important lesson was how knowing that the presence of one factor can render other considerations irrelevant. In everyday terms, what his means is that if you select option A for one factor, it might mean your decision between option C or D for some other factor has no effect on the final outcome.
This subtlety is very difficult to grasp because it challenges the natural human impulse to think of everything linearly. To put it another way, it doesn’t help that the natural tendency is to reframe a non-linear concept into a linear pattern just to make it a little easier to understand. A person who points out, for example, that the component articles of clothing in an outfit can’t just be rearranged to go with every other part of a wardrobe will always encounter someone who points out that this is the same thing as saying if a certain shirt is selected, it eliminates all the pants that don’t go with it. This is a good point if you don’t think about clothing in terms of outfits but it isn’t getting at the right way of thinking at all if the only way you conceive of getting dressed is by thinking about outfits.
Another metaphorical way to think about this is to consider ways to order a pizza. Let’s say you love pepperoni and always prefer this as your topping of choice. However, if you go to a vegetarian restaurant, this lifelong commitment won’t matter – though you still abstractly choose pepperoni (because you always do) the choice to go to a vegetarian pizza place took pepperoni off the list of realistic final pizza outcomes. So, you end up with the same dish as someone who always abstractly chooses fried cauliflower (your backup choice) (1).
The problem with the analogy is that the structure of the decision is still linear – you go to the restaurant first, then you make a decision about a topping. The linearity implied by the ‘if-then’ structure is an illusion that masks preferences because even if some decisions are rendered irrelevant by other decisions it doesn't mean that people don't maintain their preferences. To put it another way, game theory encourages looking at decisions in a simultaneous rather than linear way whenever there are multiple factors that go into a decision. This way of thinking helped me see that a lot of 'if-then' decision making was a narrative that explained very little about how people actually make decisions.
I’m describing all of this game theory here because I think the manager role is very conducive to someone who thinks like this. A manager who makes decisions in a linear way says first I do A over B, then I'll wait a little while before choosing C or D. This is OK in
A manager who makes decisions as independently as possible will say I choose A over B and also C over D. Then, the manager would think about the implications of A and C interacting together to understand the most likely outcome. This style of thinking helps managers separate the relevant from the trivial. As I noted above, sometimes it doesn't matter what one factor is if another is present. A manager who chooses A and C might know that if E suddenly becomes F, it doesn’t change the plan in any relevant way because the presence of both A and C have set the course of action in stone irrespective of how the choice between E and F is made. A manager who chose C based on E, however, might reevaluate the plan when E becomes F because this manager will not recognize that the interaction of A and C render the change from E to F irrelevant.
If this sounds complex, well, it should be – complexity is a trait common to both game theory and the manager role. We're talking about stuff that you only learn at universities and jobs people do after decades as functional adults - if you thought it was supposed to be easy, I sadly inform you that you are mistaken. Like game theory, the manager role has been subject to gross oversimplification. People who think linearly think of the manager role as setting goals, keeping teams busy, and responding to new details with the same urgency as a fire chief responds to a 911 call. In the same way, people who think linearly conceive of game theory as a series of decision trees where A leads to B, or possibly C, in which case D.
These oversimplifications are accurate in the sense that they are true for very simple examples that anyone can understand on day one. However, the reality of game theory is a lot like managing – actions matter far less than interactions. A manager who understands that choosing A over B has implication on future decisions is on the right track - the type of thinking required is not A, then C, but rather knowing how A impacts the feasibility of choosing C while considering how the two choices together might influence the eventual choice of E or F.
Footnotes / cold pizza…
0. One last analogy…
A nice metaphor for managing is that it is like juggling many balls where only a few are made of glass. The complexity comes in knowing which balls are made of glass and will therefore break if they fall. This is a helpful analogy but one that encourages the linear thinking I feel often hampers managers. A better analogy might be that sometimes the balls change from glass to rubber (and vice-versa) but unfortunately this version suffers from its non-resemblance to how juggling (or physics) actually works.
1. Technically speaking (technically, in the game theory sense)...
This metaphor is consistent with how a pooled equilibrium works. In a pooled equilibrium, people with difference preferences send the same signal and an observer is therefore unable to work out the true preferences based solely on reading the signal. In this example, two people might order fired cauliflower but for at least one person the true preference was pepperoni.
Monday, November 5, 2018
leftovers - the business bro responds to all this helmet football talk
Saturday's post was based on the idea that the different perspectives of the employee and management create a significant tension within any organization. When I thought about other examples of this tension, I was reminded of a thought I heard recently about a society and its relationship to food.
An individual who must throw away food almost always feels wasteful. Next time, the individual resolves, I’ll eat the food before it goes bad! However, the society in which this individual lives probably throws out ton after ton of food on a daily basis. This is because ‘food waste’ for a society is an abstract concept that doesn't translate down to the individual level.
This is because a society must only consider food waste in the context of starvation. If a society is wasting food, it probably means there is a low risk of any individual starving. When a society loses this practical focus and decides to allow individual qualms about minimizing food waste drive decisions at the aggregate level, it does so understanding that minimizing food waste means increasing the risk of starvation.
To put it another way, if a society opts to minimize starvation, there will be food waste. If a society opts to minimize food waste, there will be starvation. The tension felt by an individual anytime he or she throws away wasted food is reconciled if the individual understands that wasting food is society’s way of guaranteeing everyone has enough to eat when it is next to impossible to predict how much everyone will need to eat tomorrow.
It works in a similar way within organizations. The organization must decide what negatives it wishes to minimize and must do so with an understanding of the consequences. If an organization opts to minimize employee abrasion, there will be lost market opportunity; if an organization opts to maximize market opportunity, there will be employee abrasion. The tension is reconciled when the employee understands how their negative experiences serve the need of the organization around them. And whose job is it to reconcile this tension in the organization? The manager, of course.
An individual who must throw away food almost always feels wasteful. Next time, the individual resolves, I’ll eat the food before it goes bad! However, the society in which this individual lives probably throws out ton after ton of food on a daily basis. This is because ‘food waste’ for a society is an abstract concept that doesn't translate down to the individual level.
This is because a society must only consider food waste in the context of starvation. If a society is wasting food, it probably means there is a low risk of any individual starving. When a society loses this practical focus and decides to allow individual qualms about minimizing food waste drive decisions at the aggregate level, it does so understanding that minimizing food waste means increasing the risk of starvation.
To put it another way, if a society opts to minimize starvation, there will be food waste. If a society opts to minimize food waste, there will be starvation. The tension felt by an individual anytime he or she throws away wasted food is reconciled if the individual understands that wasting food is society’s way of guaranteeing everyone has enough to eat when it is next to impossible to predict how much everyone will need to eat tomorrow.
It works in a similar way within organizations. The organization must decide what negatives it wishes to minimize and must do so with an understanding of the consequences. If an organization opts to minimize employee abrasion, there will be lost market opportunity; if an organization opts to maximize market opportunity, there will be employee abrasion. The tension is reconciled when the employee understands how their negative experiences serve the need of the organization around them. And whose job is it to reconcile this tension in the organization? The manager, of course.
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