I was at Chipotle the other day…all of the employees were running around the kitchen, frantically trying to refill their meat supplies (I think they were out of chicken). At any rate, the line continued to pile up, and all of us were waiting. But everyone in the back looked busy, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what they were doing.
They were frantic. But they didn’t do anything. If someone was in charge, the cashier could have continued checking out people or they could have served the people further back in line who didn’t want chicken. They could have done something to help the problem. Some would say they were busy. I say they were busy doing nothing!
So what’s the moral of this post? I don’t know. It just made me think about how people accomplish their work–efficiently or slowly. Do companies reward frantic inefficiency? I tihnk employers naturally like to see their employees working, but you need to take a step back and consider is the jobbing getting done well?
Because at the end of the day, frantic inefficiency does no one any good. It just makes us wait longer for our burritos.