There are some things in this world Old Taskmaster has little time for.
They are the boring meetings that drag on forever while the committee process waters down potentially viable product ideas until they start resembling a Telecom Computerphone. The endless tax forms – especially the kind that never give you a chance to skip to question 21 section b by ticking “no” to question five.
Then there are pedantic bureaucrats, to whom mountains of impeccably compiled and completed paperwork in the name of procedure is life’s most important “outcome”. There are bureaucratic jargon terms, like “outcomes”. There’s the sort of politician who lies, fails to deliver promised tax cuts or raises taxes (calling it a “savings measure”), while simultaneously concocting grand policy schemes by committees of bureaucrats and boasting about “outcomes” – in other words, most of the unindustrious critters up in Canberra.
Of course, there’s another reason the old handgrip is getting a good squeeze: Queues.
Some say patience is a virtue. Well, that’s a languid attitude to hold. No wonder most of the dallying slackers using this phrase are politicians, tax department loafers and indolent Canberra bureaucrats.
Patience isn’t a virtue – it’s lost productivity. Every minute spent comatose in a queue is a minute not spent toiling in the fields or petting a cute little puppy dog. Puppies with big eyes and waggly tails. Those cute little pups are sad, pining and scratching at the door every single minute their masters are waiting in line at the local store. The inescapable truth of the matter is that shopkeepers who hold an indifferent attitude to queuing customers hate cute little puppy dogs!
Queuing is not even a particularly enjoyable form of idleness. Slowly appreciating an expertly mixed brandy old-fashioned is a recreational use of inactive time. In contrast, waiting to get to the front of the eight items or less queue is just indolently unproductive.
Long queues display an arrogance – a deep, black-hearted contempt – for your customers. Here are willing consumers voluntarily trying to hand you their money and you make them wait for the privilege!
While Old Taskmaster is not the militant sort by nature, the worst offenders deserve a picket line of angry customers carrying placards reading “my puppy is sad” and “please take my money” until everyone’s number is called at the deli counter.
Even the online world is not immune these days. The internet is littered with spinning colour disks, hour glasses and download bars that have been stuck at 37% and three minutes to go for the past three hours!
Well, Old Taskmaster says it’s time to stop the sloth! Take a look at your business, especially during peak times. Identify any bottlenecks and get them resolved!
Many customers and cute puppy dogs will thank you as a result!
Get it done – ahead of the queue!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
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