The CEO of a large multinational company fell ill on a day when he had tickets to see a grand concert. As a gesture of kindness, he gave the tickets to the company’s Efficiency Expert to enjoy the concert with his wife.
Next morning, the CEO was surprised to find a report on his table, written by their Efficiency Expert and this is what it said:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for sending me to the concert last evening with my wife. My observations are as follows: The highlight of the evening was Schubert’s unfinished symphony. Although personally I think unfinished works should be disqualified, I did watch the performance and here are some, but not all, of the malfunctions I found:
The most obvious problem was that they had 22 violinists playing the exact same tune. Such reckless waste! I believe that at least 21 of them should be fired.
The drummer was doing nothing for long stretches of time. I would suggest he be put on a different clock, so we can keep an eye on him and only pay him when he actually does any work.
Many of the musical segments kept repeating themselves, and I fail to understand the point of having the flutes play the same segment as the Oboes. If we can cut down on these repetitions, we can finish the symphony in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours.
Regarding the equipment: I noticed a horrible lack of standardization when it comes to musical instruments, and especially when it comes to string instruments. I’ve seen small ones, big ones, one you hold under your chin and some you hold between your legs. I think that one size for all these instruments will save time, money and confusion, as well as make maintenance easier.
The conductor, the most senior employee, did not play as much as a single tune the entire concert, and showed a complete lack of respect to the customers, while standing with his back (his back!) to the audience. There were even a few times he was threatening his staff with a stick, which should never be allowed publicly. I would suspend him with no pay until we can get to the bottom of this. Psychological counselling may be advised.
To summarize: I am quite sure that if Mr. Schubert had avoided these issues, he would have managed to finish his work, instead of leaving us with an unfinished symphony!
