The Delta House

I read an article this morning that claimed US employers will lose $800 million in productivity over the next two weeks as a result of the Super Bowl. A consulting firm came up with that figure, and they probably got paid a million bucks to do the research to back it up.

So I think that I have decided on a new career path. I want to be a corporate consultant, like The Bobs. Every day I go to work and I see money being wasted by the truckload, so I figure that I can cash in by telling them how to save some of that jack. It’s quite simple, actually.

The first thing I will concentrate on is bullshit expenditures. My company has a ton of these, and since they are my only contact with corporate America, I will assume that every company has similar issues.

This morning when I arrived at my office, I noticed that the driveway and little parking lot had been plowed by our contractor. Though that might seem like a reasonable expense, consider that we only accumulated about one inch of snow overnight. My 10-month old son could ride a Big Wheel over one inch of snow, and he can’t even walk yet!

I received some parts yesterday that I ordered for a project. All of the parts came from the same place, one of our sites out west. There were 4 different items, all of which were smaller than a loaf of bread and weighed less than a pound. They easily could have all fit in one box about the size of a microwave, but the guy that shipped them put each in its own box. And each box was the size of a basketball with tons of Styrofoam peanuts. And he sent them overnight even though I said that I didn’t need the parts until next week. This happens all the time around here. The worst part is that I could have gone to an electrical supply store and bought the parts for less than it cost to ship just one box, but company policy states that our first option is to utilize the parts already in stock, no matter where in the country they may be located.

Everyone in my office uses their company issued cell phone to make local calls when they are in the office. And yes, we do have land lines in the office. This has got to be the easiest money saver of them all.

I carry a two-way text pager in addition to my cell phone. The only pages I receive are also sent to my cell phone as a text message. And the pager doesn’t work at my house, so it does me no good when I am on call and hanging out at the homestead. And even though I have been carrying it for nearly a year now, I have never sent a message from it. It’s a complete waste of money.

We have a lawn care service that takes care of the grounds around our office. They come once a week from April until November and cut the grass. They also do some hedge trimming and mulching to make the place look good. I have no problem with this, except the grass doesn't really start growing here until around mid-May and it quits growing in early October. That is 10-12 weeks that they come to cut grass that isn't growing at all. I swear that I have seen them riding around on their Scag mowers with the blades not even engaged.

So now that the pork has been cut from the budget, tomorrow I will start looking increasing productivity. Let me give you a hint: Smokers and bloggers are not gonna like this one bit.