A few thoughts for today – in my Inbox sat an Internal Announcement about a new program for cutting costs to become “a world-class organization” by asking every employee to cut $8 a day in expenses. Swell. I think it’s a great theory. How much is a box of paper clips? But the real power of the memo is under the heading “WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE?”
Taking lessons from the national bestseller “Good to Great,” we recognize cost savings has a tremendous impact on our transition to a world-class company. With “$8 to Great,” ALL associates are empowered to do their part.
Each week flyers highlighting a different “real-life” savings concept as well as ideas to help you make a difference will be posted in your location. We encourage you to stop and think about these concepts and continue to identify ways we can save money and do our jobs more efficiently.
In other words: If you help save money by making your job harder the piratas blanco at the top of the ladder will have more profit margin to play with. That would be a savings of at least $2080 per year per employee. And they’ll freak out if someone gets half-an-hour of overtime and act like we should be thrilled by out 3% annual raise. I’m sold.
Then I had a customer who reminds me of an old employer come in this morning to talk to My Salesman. The customer—who we’ll call Bich to protect his identity—told me to watch my bid entries because I had fat-fingered an item on a recent project. He said, “Don’t worry, I got you covered on this one. Right. My Salesman jumped in at that point to say, “You remember what we talked about? Going through each line item and double checking everything?” I said, “Are you kidding?” Bich was standing right there, but whatever. My Salesman wasn’t the one that stayed late and had to beg favors from the rest of the sales staff to get the job done. My Salesman and Bich make a great team. For example—one day My Salesman was telling me about how things were going to get better for Bich once the recession hits because “he’ll be able to pick up some good julios cheap.” I say, “So Bich is going to expand his crew during to recession to save money?” He gets this lame/timid look on his face. I can read between the lines. “So he’s going to drop the guys working for him now and replace them with guys begging to work for peanuts? Those ‘julios’ have families, bills, they’ve been loyal to Bich and done a good job for him.” In a huff, My Salesman says, “Let Bich worry about how he does business.” Yeah, I will. But don’t act surprised that I’m not jumping for joy when you ask me to call him about something so stupid that you don’t want to be the person on the other end of the line.
R.
Taking lessons from the national bestseller “Good to Great,” we recognize cost savings has a tremendous impact on our transition to a world-class company. With “$8 to Great,” ALL associates are empowered to do their part.
Each week flyers highlighting a different “real-life” savings concept as well as ideas to help you make a difference will be posted in your location. We encourage you to stop and think about these concepts and continue to identify ways we can save money and do our jobs more efficiently.
In other words: If you help save money by making your job harder the piratas blanco at the top of the ladder will have more profit margin to play with. That would be a savings of at least $2080 per year per employee. And they’ll freak out if someone gets half-an-hour of overtime and act like we should be thrilled by out 3% annual raise. I’m sold.
Then I had a customer who reminds me of an old employer come in this morning to talk to My Salesman. The customer—who we’ll call Bich to protect his identity—told me to watch my bid entries because I had fat-fingered an item on a recent project. He said, “Don’t worry, I got you covered on this one. Right. My Salesman jumped in at that point to say, “You remember what we talked about? Going through each line item and double checking everything?” I said, “Are you kidding?” Bich was standing right there, but whatever. My Salesman wasn’t the one that stayed late and had to beg favors from the rest of the sales staff to get the job done. My Salesman and Bich make a great team. For example—one day My Salesman was telling me about how things were going to get better for Bich once the recession hits because “he’ll be able to pick up some good julios cheap.” I say, “So Bich is going to expand his crew during to recession to save money?” He gets this lame/timid look on his face. I can read between the lines. “So he’s going to drop the guys working for him now and replace them with guys begging to work for peanuts? Those ‘julios’ have families, bills, they’ve been loyal to Bich and done a good job for him.” In a huff, My Salesman says, “Let Bich worry about how he does business.” Yeah, I will. But don’t act surprised that I’m not jumping for joy when you ask me to call him about something so stupid that you don’t want to be the person on the other end of the line.
R.
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