--sounds Familiar

[bozodog]

Corporate Ingenuity in America

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese team won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese team had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

So, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the American's rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was also discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.

[tictoc5150]

Hmmmm, funny but disturbing for seeming almost factual.

[JDoors]

So, where's the comedy?

(I have to see this in effect every single day I work.)

[garmanma]

Having worked at a Fortune 500 company, I gotta agree with JDoors. It was comical. They didn't go to India, though, they went to Mexico

Mark

[JDoors]

An example of their (apparent) stupidity: I work in a casino. Nickel and two-cent slots have a higher percentage "take" than higher denominations. So, what's the smart thing to do? Replace the dollar slots with nickels and two-centers, right?

Well, no. People will put $20 in a nickel machine and play for two hours. Sure, the "percentage" the casino gets is quite high, but the most they can take in is $20 every two hours.

How long will that $20 last in a dollar machine? Maybe six minutes. Sometimes they win because the pay-out is higher, but you will, over time, get TWENTY people dropping $20 in that same two hour timeframe.

NOW what's the smart thing to do?

Well, the American Management thing to do is to lay off employees and change the remaining employees to part-time to make up the lost revenue, then install more nickel and two-cent machines with the savings.

Is that not identical to the so-called "joke?"

[thesidekickcat]

I read this thread to Hubby earlier tonight, he said sounds exactly like Intel was...!!!

They laid off a lot of good hard working people, to make it look like 'reorganization' (code name: lay off 10 thousand people worldwide though here in Oregon they wont even tell the real amount of how many were really laid off....or how many have quit due to not being able to take the stress anymore) would actually make the stockholders happy...so how come it didn't? Stock still going down so they will continue to lay off people until only upper upper management is left sitting on their golden parachutes!!!

Corporations cant continue this nonsense of being beholden only to stockholders' whims per quarter. I read in US News recently that that's why so many companies are going back to private ownership so they can actually do what is needed long term to be a viable working company!!!

Sad to see the way things are going downhill with our country's corporations.

P.S. JD, you forgot to mention layoff good workers after you have them train their subcontractor replacements.

Pat

God bless everyone

Edited January 21, 2007 by thesidekickcat

[JDoors]

... P.S. JD, you forgot to mention layoff good workers after you have them train their subcontractor replacements. ...

Don't get me started!

The cage cashiers are being trained on how to maintain new voucher/ticket redemption machines (cashiers used to cash out winnings printed by the machines onto tickets). Once they have enough people trained on how to maintain those machines, uh, how many cashiers will lose their jobs since they will no longer have to manually cash out tickets?

American Management: "No comment." "We don't know." "There are no plans to lay anyone off at this time."

Translation: "We don't know anything whatsoever so why ask us?" Or, "We're not gonna tell you only to have you find another job before we're ready to let you go (aka "Like we care about your family or your responsibilities")."

Or, how about another? (OK, I'm riled up now!) For jackpots there's paperwork involved. We fill out the paperwork. The paperwork MUST match the customer's identification, make a mistake often enough and you will be fired.

There is no spot on the paperwork for a middle initial. New Ruling From Above: "Do not just insert a middle initial."

OK, the paperwork must match the ID or you could get fired, but you can't MAKE the paperwork match the ID so ... We're all fired?

Sigh.

Edited January 21, 2007 by JDoors

[irregularjoe]

Corporate Ingenuity in America

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese team won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese team had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

So, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the American's rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was also discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.

Good one Bozodog!