Wanted: People Who Don't Care

“How about up there?” I asked.

"For a minute, I thought it might be in the right place,”  he said as he opened another inventory door for me.

That’s all he had to do to clue me in that he was working for a company that needed improvement in some form. By his words and actions, he demonstrated that the store inventory was not in good order. I wanted to buy a desk lamp that was on display, but the one I wanted wasn’t on the shelf in a box among all the other lamps. I couldn’t find one so I walked around the aisles for a while until I finally found someone who worked there.

“How may I help you ma’am?” he asked with a smile.

“I’d like to buy one of the lamps on display, but I can’t find one on the shelf.”

“Let’s see what I can do for you,” he said in a very calming voice. He immediately struck me as someone who likes to help people--the type of person any CEO would want on their floor.

He looked at all the boxed lamps on the shelves, just as I did, but there was no lamp. Then he started opening doors on top of the shelves, looking at inventory numbers hand-written on the boxes. He opened two doors where the overstock inventory would logically be stored, just above the lamps, but none of the boxes had the magic number. I asked him to look in a few more nearby areas, and he agreed, saying that the inventory often wasn't in its most logical place.

He was an older gentleman, so I made the assumption that he probably had other jobs in the past.

“What did you do before you worked here?" I wondered.

“Social work, but I couldn’t take it anymore. Saw too many kids from families that have to choose between clothing or food. Then their school teachers failed them because they didn’t print out their homework on a computer. Some of those kids come from families who can’t even afford the electric to power the computer. So I started building computers for kids, on the side. Built 346 of them over the years, but finally burnt out. I worked day and night to try to help them, and never saw the state give a kid a computer so they could do their homework.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.” I started imagining that this man might not see his reward until he's in heaven. “So what brought you here?”

“Just needed to do something different--something completely different.” He kept scanning the shelves.

“Have you ever made a suggestion to improve the inventory here?” I was baffled that such a major corporation was blind to their employees' day-to-day frustrations. I was thinking that I should contact the CEO and ask him if he knows what kind of conversations are going on between his employees and his customers!

“Management doesn’t want to hear anything we have to say. Corporate sends us inventory whether we need it or not and we find a place to put it. Sometimes we have too much of one product and sometimes we’re completely out of another, but they’re not too concerned about it.”

“So you went from one organization that didn’t understand its customer to a company in a different industry who cares little for its employees and customers.”

“That’s right, but it’s easier to say 'no' to a customer with a car and a cell phone than to a kid who didn’t have breakfast or lunch.”

“Seems like you know something about quality and inventory management.”

“Yes, before the social work, I worked for a company that followed Deming principles.”

“It must be hard to walk around all day knowing how you can improve the business and the service to the customer, but have your hands tied.”

He nodded. “Everything I say here falls on deaf ears. Management doesn’t want to hear it. They tell us what to do and we're supposed to obey.”

As an advocate for continuous improvement, I find this troubling on several levels. The company is missing out on great suggestions that could come from employees. I’ve never been given a customer survey at this store, so I imagine they’re also missing out on customer feedback. It amazes me that companies like this can stay in business for years, and this is a well known company with stores all over the United States! I definitely wouldn’t buy stock in this company, and I’m going to start paying closer attention to their competition, just to see how they stand up to their competition in the upcoming years.

We couldn’t locate the lamp in the store inventory or in their warehouse, so he sold me the display at a discount. Shouldn’t they have a better process for out-of-stock inventory, I wondered?

If you work for a company where top management wants to hear the voice of the employees and the customers, you are fortunate. If you later go to a company that doesn’t want your input, you will likely feel belittled and probably won’t want to stay very long. I’ve been in this store many times before and I didn’t see this nice, helpful man. I’m wondering how long he will last in this culture. Will this good worker burn out here? Will I see him here in a few months? In a way, I hope I don’t, because he deserves better. He’s too smart and too nice to last in this top-down driven culture.

If you’re in control of your business, but your business is going down, you may be able to capture ideas from your employees and customers to help turn it around. If you’re interested in more ideas on how to continuously improve your business, contact Dr. Lorraine for a consultation. You don’t know what you might be missing. If you’re not careful, you may be running out of lamps. It’s not easy to work in the dark!

Harry's Broken Process Eats Up Time

Last night my husband and I drove to St. Augustine to enjoy an evening walk on the the beach and dinner. The walk on the beach was great, but the dinner experience wasn't as pleasant.
We strolled around St. Augustine checking out our restaurant choices. We passed by several for various reasons: we weren't  in the mood for Mexican, the music was too loud, the outdoor chairs didn't look comfortable, we didn't care for the musician, the wait for outdoor seating was too long, or whatever. And so we kept walking, until we came to Harry's of course, my husband's favorite restaurant in the ancient city.

Harry's has a quaint courtyard and they usually have a mellow live music on weekend evenings. My husband had Harry's on his mind before we even arrived, so I knew that he'd be disappointed if I chose another restaurant. But next time I probably will. 
 
We arrived at Harry's about 9:30 PM and we were told that we'd have about a 30 minute wait. So we got a drink and sat down on chairs in the outdoor waiting area. We sat down hoping to relax. About five or ten minutes later, two other couples with British accents joined us in the outdoor waiting area. Immediately, they started commenting about all the empty tables that we were looking at--some clean and some not so clean. They grew impatient quickly and the two men sat down at an empty table for two. A few minutes later, a waitress asked them to leave the table.
"We've been standing around staring at this empty table while our wives are holding their drinks on their knees," he said with his British accent. "What's the hold up?"
The waitress informed him that the kitchen was "backed up" and that they would be seating customers at this table soon. They had too many orders in the kitchen and they couldn't keep up.

In the meantime, we all joked critically about the empty tables, commenting about their slow service. The employees were all wearing black pants and black shirts so it was easy to identify three of them standing in a corner chatting.  If you know Harry, please let him know that it's not a good idea for customers to stand around waiting for service, while they watch three employees stand around talking. It gives us the impression that the customers here are a low priority.
The next time someone in black walked by the British customer, he asked, "Can you please let me know why we're standing in this waiting area when there are so many empty tables?"
"Our computer went down and our tech guy got in a fight with his girlfriend, so he left." The guys turned to us and brought us up to date with the latest report.
The next time I saw someone walk by in black, I asked if she could request the manager to come talk to us. A manager came out right away. She had black spiked hair and lips pursed with frustration. As soon as she came out to the courtyard, the people in black started looking busy. They walked over to the dirty tables, started wiping and pushing dirty dishes around. They ought to get some of these people back in the kitchen to lend a hand, I thought, to learn to make a salad or something!
"We've been looking at empty tables for almost half an hour. Is there a reason why we can't wait more comfortably at a table?"
"You've been waiting for 18 minutes on pager #152," she snapped. "We can't seat any more people or our kitchen will go down." I wondered how she knew our pager number. After getting home and downloading my pictures, my camera time showed 25 minutes between the time we arrived and the time I took a photo just after talking with the manager. I was irritated enough to check the time the next day!
When our pager finally went off and we went to the hostess station, I asked a young lady how long we had been waiting. "The pager time just cleared out," she said with a smirk. "Follow me please," she said as she grabbed two menus. I wasn't surprised that she wasn't tracking the promised time against the actual wait time. Their lack of appropriate measures was evident. If the restaurant had some better process measures in place, the manager could have improved customer service this evening. They obviously didn't have a goal of getting tables cleaned quickly or getting customers seated as quickly as possible.
We eventually got seated and had a good hot meal, but we certainly didn't have a romantic evening of conversation on Harry's patio as we had expected. Instead, we got caught up in conversation with other frustrated customers as we witnessed their broken process. We all agreed that we'd rather be waiting at a table conversing with our companions than standing on the sidelines. There weren't enough "waiting" seats for everyone who was waiting, even though there were plenty of chairs in the courtyard.
I shot a photo of my dinner plate when it arrived at 11:12 PM. If I had known we were going to wait more than an hour and a half for our dinner, I wouldn't have chosen Harry's.
If you're a hungry tourist in St. Augustine tonight, I don't recommend Harry's, but if you don't mind sitting or standing around in a nice courtyard for an hour or more, you might enjoy it.
We have visitors coming into town next week and we were planning on bringing about a dozen people to Harry's. Now we're working on Plan B. We've been going to Harry's occasionally for several years and this is the worst service we've ever experienced.
Does anyone know what's up with Harry? Is he doing OK? Even if a business is going down hill, it can survive by taking advantage of tourists who don't know any better. Tourists beware!
Harry could do any of the following to begin the journey of improving his customer satisfaction:

• put customer feedback cards on every table
• train the busboys and busgirls to help make salads when the kitchen gets backed up
• hire managers who have more empathy with customers
• redesign the measure that's forcing the hostess not to seat people at empty tables until the kitchen is ready

If you own or work for a business where you believe you can be doing a better job and would like help improving your processes, contact Dr. Lorraine today. Better now than later.

Write Down Your Processes for Goodness' Sake

"Last time I was here, I had no problem swapping mashed potatoes for the French fries. So why is it a problem today?" a customer retorts with frustration.

"When I bought the car, I was told your service policy was to wash my car every time it comes in for service, but half the time, you tell me my car is ready, but I'll have to wait longer if I want it washed."

Sound familiar? Ever had the rules changed on you?

Are you familiar with the Telephone game in which one person whispers a message into the ear of the next person? The way this game goes is that a group of individuals form a circle and one person starts with the original news. The information is transferred from one person to the next until it goes all the way around the circle. As the message comes back around, the last person communicates out loud to the whole group--and laughter breaks out as everyone comments on what they thought they heard.

This is a favorite party game around the world because it illustrates how much each person distorts the message to the extent that the final message is often completely unrelated to the original. The larger the group, the more erroneous the message becomes. It's downright funny how unreliable verbal communication can be. In a game the result is laughter, but in business, the result is leakage!

Now imagine relying on verbal communication in a company with dozens of employees? How about hundreds of employees, or even thousands. People are talking--you can count on it!It's management's responsibility to ensure they're all sending the same message. If top managers want to allow substitutions, do all of your employees permit customers to swap mashed potatoes for French fries? If it's your policy to wash all cars after servicing them, are you counting how many actually get washed? If these things aren't happening consistently, what impression do you think you're giving your customers?

So what does this mean to business owners and managers? It can be very expensive to count on verbal communication as the primary means of running your business. Verbal communication differs tremendously from person to person. Variability is the opposite of stability or standardization.

If every employee does things his or her own way, the customer ends up having a different experience each time he does business with you. Not only does your business success depend on putting standard practices into place, it also depends on being sure that they're getting carried out every day.

Variability means less predictability and more chaos for your employees and customers. If service or problem resolution is handled a different way each time it happens, customers become frustrated and typically even inform employees how things were done around here the last time. Erratic processes increase employee stress and lower customer satisfaction.

IBM Manager Bob Haataia suggests a good idea. Imagine the same circle game but with a new rule--the first person has to write the message on a piece of paper and read it quietly to their neighbor, then pass it on to the next person and so on, until it goes all the way around the circle. This game wouldn't be anywhere near as comical as the first because if everyone followed the rules, the first message would be exactly the same as the last.  You can count on it. You can predict it. No game!

If you had 10, 100, or even 1000 people standing in a circle, they could discuss other matters amongst themselves until the written message got around to the last person because they would already know how the game will end. It will end with everyone getting the same message.  There's no confusion and no stress. If a company has well-written procedures and work instructions and employees are properly trained in carrying out these good practices, then the organization has a much better chance at promoting their brand by giving their customers a consistent experience.

God delivered us a message through his son, but he made sure that there were people around to write down the stories. He didn't leave it to chance. If God thinks it's a good idea, I choose to agree.

Some people may interpret the written words a bit differently, and if they do, you have the opportunity to discuss the instructions or procedures to make it more clear to everyone.

Do you have a company mission statement? Are your core business processes written down? Do they support your mission? Is everyone marching in the same direction without tripping over one another?

If you said 'no' to any of these questions and would like help in standardizing best practices in your company, contact Dr. Lorraine for a consultation. Together, we can put together plan for you to standardize and continuously improve your processes and your profitability.

Two Feedback Questions are Better Than Thirty Six

My intent in providing feedback is to help organizations better understand how customers experience their product and service offerings. Most leaders and managers have blind spots they don’t even know about. In addition, many people are uncomfortable with genuine feedback, so they find ways around it. They collect examples to support their own desires. And they gather excuses to avoid the things they don’t want to deal with. For leaders who are open to change and growth, I provide just one opinion that they may or may not find helpful.

I arrived at Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center (LYBCC) after dark on Friday, so my first impression was that it was a difficult place to find. Their directions from Jacksonville told me to come via SR-40. After I turned onto SR-40, I saw a sign that said Road closed 11 miles ahead, local traffic only. This didn't bother me. I justified that I would drive slow through the road construction and act like local traffic. Ten miles later, I came to another sign that provided one more important detail: Bridge closed, local traffic only. Bridge closed! Why didn't they mention this 10 miles ago? Why didn't MapQuest tell me this several hours ago?

Over the years I've become an expert at getting myself out of being lost. So I came prepared with my Florida map. I drove off the side of the road and pulled my reading glasses out of my luggage. When I was younger I didn't need the reading glasses step, but now I do. I studied the map and found out how I was going to go around this bridge closure. Here I was on a very dark night on the back country road in central Florida. I was disappointed with MapQuest, with LYBCC, with road construction procedures and with myself for not having gotten the memo about the bridge closure.

I was already on a tight schedule and now I was certain to be late for the Friday-night keynote speaker. But I had a conversation with myself, saying that I could get the notes, have lunch with the speaker or hear him at another conference. When I made the first right turn, all I could see in the sky was the moon smiling at me. It was a crescent in the shape of a smile. I felt safe knowing that God was watching over me and giving me yet another life lesson. By now, I was all cheered up, because I realized that I couldn't change what happened. I could only go on with this day from right here, right now. This detour ended up costing me about an extra 45 minutes.

Not only was it a challenge for me to find Lake Yale, but once I did find the property, I drove around turning my car into strange positions on the roads to shine my headlights on the building names trying to figure out how to find my group. The building names were hard to see in the dark.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I found myself at a serene conference center on a lake. After staying here Friday night and driving around the campus a few times on Saturday, I recognized that there doesn’t seem to be any tight security here. There’s no gate at the entry, no special tags for the cars and no formal check in. Anyone can drive on or off the property with ease.

The breakfast and lunch didn't thrill me, so I ventured off site for a Subway dinner even though it was about 15 miles away. I used a map from the Guest Information notebook to navigate my way to the nearby small town of Eustis. Not only did I want a healthy dinner, but I was also craving a good cup of coffee with cream. All they served here was weak coffee with fake flavored and sugared creamers. I don’t like that stuff! I also don’t like this coffee addiction I have, especially when I’m on the road. Sooner than later, I must do something about it, but not today.

So I ventured out and got a Starbucks doppio espresso with doppio shots of hot water. This satisfied my coffee craving. As I sipped on my espresso doppio, I did a bit of reflection on my personal vision and mission. I love thinking through things or writing as a caffeine buzz kicks in. Then I went to Subway--you can always count on them for a quick healthy sandwich.

Back at LYBCC on Saturday evening when our conference room was too cold, I was able to use a phone on the wall in the in the entry of the education building to call for assistance. I called and got an answering service. This didn’t give me a lot of confidence about how quickly we would get heat, but to my surprise, we got help within minutes. The message got through quickly and a staff member adjusted the thermostat within a few minutes. He must have been here on site and responded to a page right away. The quick response time was impressive.

LYBCC really has an opportunity that they’re missing. Early on Saturday, I checked the times for their café & bookstore. They were only open from 2-4:30 PM on Saturday. I saw a lot of people walking around campus and surely these people would want to buy a coffee or other food if there were good options in the café. In addition, the café is separate from the cafeteria. Since both relate to food and coffee and people may want to eat or linger beyond cafeteria hours, I think they ought to combine the café with the cafeteria. I recognize that they would have to set up some good procedures to make it work and do some renovations, but I believe it would be to their benefit.

The cafeteria has a view of the lake, but the café doesn’t. The café only had a few unhealthy quick food options. Neither the cafeteria nor café offered a good cup of coffee with cream. Why call it a café? The cafeteria salad bar at lunch was pretty good. They offered several vegetables, but the blue cheese dressing wasn't the greatest. The drink lines weren’t set up efficiently. The Styrofoam cups were placed right in the middle of a combination drink and condiment stand.

People bottlenecked at the drink/condiment stand, trying to get a coffee or hot chocolate and then step sideways through others in line so they could make their way to the creamers and stirs. People were stirring their coffee while others were reaching across them for ketchup. Since none of the staff asked my opinion about their assembly line, I didn't say anything. This is the don't ask and don't tell principle in action. This would be a good project for a college student wanting to become a process specialist.

The dining hours were limited to one hour and I don’t mind that so much, as long as the food is good and they can get people through the lines quickly. I liked how the lines formed inside the building rather than outside. Last October I went to the LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center for a writers conference and I remember shivering in line because the doors had to be propped open to accommodate people waiting in line for their food. During some meals the temperature was in the 40s. It made for a very uncomfortable wait. The architects didn't plan to accommodate the long lines at dinner.

The pillows in the LYBCC rooms were all the same—too big and too puffy. I’m petite and my neck was propped up too high. I felt the kink in my neck on Saturday and Sunday mornings. This is the reason that some people travel with their pillows. Maybe I should look into some small travel pillow to solve this issue. I’m constantly trying to reduce the amount of stuff I travel with, however, so I’m not eager to add items to my travel checklist. I think that they ought to have a variety of pillow sizes in each room, or at least offer an extra one or two with less poof. Even if they’re trying to make sure that the bed looks balanced when it’s made, they can provide housekeeping with instructions to put two flat pillows in the middle of the king bed and two poofy ones on the sides. That way it would all balance out. Problem solved! Another way I can solve the problem is to accustom myself to sleeping flat on my back so I never need a pillow anymore. Maybe I'll find some time to read up on this to see what the sleep experts say.

Something else I really didn’t like about the room was the fact that it was somewhat musty and the window was bolted shut. The only way to get air in the room was through the noisy HVAC unit. If the room didn’t have carpeting, but had hard surface flooring instead, it probably wouldn’t hold onto as much dust and odor. Don’t get me wrong, the room was clean on the surface. Other things in the room can carry musty odors as well, such as the mattress, the bedspread, the furnishings and even the walls. On both mornings, I woke up stuffy and my eyes had that squinty red look I get when my allergies are acting up. I often feel this way when I wake up in older hotels with poor ventilation. I slept with the HVAC unit off because I don’t like the noise of a loud fan going all night.

Here are best things I found about LYBCC:

• This is a beautiful property with lake views. Because it’s in central Florida and far from malls and outlets, it really promotes rest and relaxation.
  
• The facilities seem to be well maintained and basic procedures seemed to be quite effective.
  
• Since “Baptist” is in the name, I assume that the facility is backed by the Baptist church and therefore probably has the means to promote and improve the facility for greater maximization of its asset. I noticed a campsite on the property, for example. This mixed use of the property is an innovative idea and provides visitors with options.

So if LYBCC were to improve on a few things, here’s what I’d suggest in order of importance:

1. Enhance the dining experience by doing some or all of the following:
   a. provide outdoor seating with a view of the lake
   b. move the café to the same building as the cafeteria and keep the café open for most of the day so people can buy drinks & snacks during their breaks
   
2. make contact with the people who come on site, give them the option to keep in touch by signing up for a newsletter and/or provide a brochure that they can take back to their church. Some type of front desk check in would probably work best. I spent the weekend here and had very minimal contact with anyone from LYBCC.
   
3. Continuously improve the look & feel of the rooms:
   a. provide a way to freshen up the smell of the room, while minimizing the noise. Hint: the answer is not a deodorizer! The room is often a big part of a person’s first impression at a retreat center.
   b. provide some pillows with less stuffing
   c. add color to warm up the white walls

There’s no question in my mind that LYBCC has put effort into pleasing their visitors. They placed a Guest Information notebook in my room. I had notebook #417 and I was in room#709. These differing numbers indicates to me there’s probably an opportunity for improvement. I visualize a manual inefficient process going on behind the scenes. Because the notebook has so many pages, I imagine that it’s time consuming to go through it after each guest departs, to make sure that any missing pages are replaced.

The notebook included numerous computer-generated pages organized into five categories:
· Emergency Services
· General Information
· Guest Services
· Around the Area
· Comments

It looks like several people have put a lot of effort into doing this research and compiling these pages over time. It does look rather homemade, however, cheapening their effort. I think they would benefit by converting some of this information into more condensed and graphically pleasing brochures to lay out in the rooms. I'm not saying this to harm the organization, but to help the organization. If I thought it looked homemade, it's likely that someone else thought the same thing.

The three-page evaluation form in the last Comments section probably goes unnoticed by most guests. And even if a guest did notice the “Guest Evaluation” form in the Comments section of the notebook, I doubt if many people would complete a three-page form that would take longer to complete than filling out an application for a drivers license. The Guest Evaluation form does, however, provide an instrument for people to communicate to them and they clearly identify all the areas where they’re seeking feedback:

• Office Staff
  
• Housekeepers
  
• Dining room
  
• Groundskeepers
  
• Audio-visual crew
  
• Miscellaneous
  
• Comments

It’s tempting for me to type out this three-page form so you can check it out, but I think the main value in this list is internal, for the benefit of each department head. The questions aren’t numbered, but I counted up 36, not including the option to include additional comments!

They’re organizing the customer’s comments by their departments, rather than how a customer experiences a weekend or week on their property: check-in process, room, conference rooms, dining experience and so on. Their "Guest Evaluation" might be a good checklist for the staff, but I’m certain that if we counted up the number of people who slept at LYBCC in 2007 and the number of people who completed the Guest Evaluation form, I bet we’d discover that less than 5% of the visitors found the form and completed it without any prompting. If people did complete it, it’s probably because their meeting organizer included it in their participant packets and requested them to fill it out. I'm notorious for providing feedback, but this one was so long that I didn't want to fill it out.

One final note about the Guest Information notebook is that it also included the business card of their Director of Guest Services--a bold gesture for any organization. I’ll send her this note and see what happens.

After the conference, I learned that much of the staff here are volunteers who work hard to keep this beautiful facility running. Again, I'm only one opinion, but I believe that that they are achieving their stated mission and they're doing it at an affordable price which provides an open door to many.

How do you know if your mission is translating into the results you want? What are your measures?

Are you open to feedback in the way that your customer wants to give it to you--the way the experience goes for them? Are you sure? Learning to accept feedback takes time. For individuals, it's transforming. For organizations, it's a cultural shift.

Is it worth it to you to work toward getting better and better each day? It's up to you.

TV and Radio Go Well With Rainy Days

Last night it took me more than two hours to get home from work. This is one of the longest commute times I've had in the past year or two. A Nor'easter dropped about 8" of rain on our St. John's County neighborhood and the surrounding area. This caused knee-high flooding on many roads in Jacksonville and St. Augustine. I'm not used to driving through these deep streams on the roads and neither are most other drivers. My evening commute doesn't normally include dodging wakes from pumped up trucks. I left Pennsylvania many years ago because I didn't like the stress of driving in the snow.

Some people honk when they get stressed out. This really helps matters for the honkers, I suppose. In some areas, cars were stalling out in the water, while other people were trying to turn around, back up or go around the deepest parts of the water. This roadway chaos provides great fuel for honkers who want to let non-honkers know that they aren't doing what a honker would do.

Not long ago, I remember watching a comedian talk about horns. He had a great idea for the auto industry--to add more variety to horns:

• humble "I'm sorry" horn
• neighborly "excuse-me" horn
• friendly "the-light-is-green-stupid" horn
• frustrated "get-off-your-cell-phone-and-pay-attention-to-the-road" horn
• irritated "get-out-of-my-way-now" horn
• and so on, like the different dings and beeps we hear as our computer talks to us

Last night, I was glad that my husband and I have a habit of watching comedy. It gave me a funny thing to reflect on as I inadvertently became involved in road stress. I listen to books on CD or to my iPod during my morning and evening commute, so it was very easy for me to unknowingly drive right into the flooded area. I'm just wondering how so many other people ended up in the same situation. I guess they weren't listening to the radio either, or they didn't believe what they heard. I hardly ever listen to the radio, but last night it rained all night long.

This morning, before driving to work, I tuned into several radio stations and my husband turned on the TV. We got some good information that helped me to plan my route to work today. It definitely cut time off my commute this morning since I was able to avoid areas with flooding, accidents and road closures. Instead of taking up to two hours or more, I was able to get to work in about an hour.

TV and radio offer up more rubbish and annoying advertising than anything else, but they can offer some helpful advice on rainy days. Local officials obviously didn't have a quick or effective process in place to help divert drivers, but cell phones and radios help to empower everyone, even a caring teenager driving an old Honda who reports a bad spot on the road.

People generally process information just in time on an as-needed basis, leaving behind a lot of leftovers. People don't have time to care about all the flooded areas or accidents, just the ones that might get in their way.

Our local police force has a process to set up speed traps early in the morning, but they haven't yet worked out their less frequent flooded roads process.

And most businesses haven't yet understood the value of having a comedian on staff.