I picked up again on Tom DeMarco's Slack today, most of which (thus far) preaches to the proverbial choir--at least in my case. But probably not much further up the organizational food-chain. (Side note to writers of subversive--yea, even truly "guerilla"--management books: If you want to be passed up the chain of command, include lots and lots more charts. Just trust me on this.)
I'd be finished and onto something else by now, except that we needed to check on the bees and upgrade one "nuc" of Russian/Carniolan bees to a full-fledged hive-box--a crabby bit of business last time--in the middle of the day. As Dennis & I were packing up--from a pleasantly cooperative move--our "landlord" happened down the driveway, and we spent about an hour chatting with him.
Said "landlord" is a semi-retired farmer. Which, if you know farmers, basically means that he might trust the kids to take on some of the work when he goes on vacation (or, in his case, business travel). Where other "retirees" are out playing golf or playing bridge (and otherwise finding ways to keep their spouses from leaving them from pure exasperation), Mr. P. makes twice-daily trips to the chicken-house.
I leave it to my gentle reader to imagine how near and dear the salmonella-induced egg recall is to his heart. Not in any negative sense: Oh, no-no-no-no-no-no. If anything his distributors will be strengthened by it. But in the discussion, Mr. P. mentioned that the agro-titan culprit in the recall is notorious inside the industry for "cutting corners," as he put it. And not just with eggs.
That informaiton, of course, is hearsay--albeit with a somewhat better pedigree than mere industry gossip. All the same, it highlights the fundamental difference between true efficiency and corner-cutting. "Efficiency" means getting the same (or greater) output for less input. Booyah for that. Corner-cutting, in contrast, is no less than exercise in lying. Lying to customers--and, quite probably, lying to oneself. And once the self-deception takes root, I don't think that there's much that even my Mom and her dreaded bar of soap can do. And that's saying something. Sadly.
