Quality vs. Quantity

Would you rather have one thousand mediocre employees or only 10 stellar ones?  I would choose 10 based on my extensive experience with the care and handling of mediocre employees.  More in that case is not better.  AcMo has leveraged the experience to create a simple set of quizzes to test the staff to make sure they are all working at their highest efficiency levels.  Attacking them with pop quizzes keeps them all sharp.  Life often throws us quizzes we are unprepared to handle, so I don’t see why AcMo shouldn’t do the same.  The stakes are high with these quizzes, but we only want employees who can handle pressure.  Failure is instant termination. I hear it is painful.

The value of quality over quantity is a recurring theme of the AcMo quizzes.  There is a wrong answer to that question despite what anyone may say.  Sometimes I stumble upon the rare employee who is capable of thinking and coloring outside the lines.  This type of person would argue that the question is incorrect.  The true answer is that any product manufacturer should strive to produce a large quantity of quality products.  We would be happy if we could manage that, but our quality drops off the cliff after we move past 1000 units.   We haven’t been able to figure out why.

The question for the last pop quiz was the choice between one Pagani Zonda R or 100s of Jaguar XJ 220s?  I haven't done the math to determine the actual ratio, but it doesn't matter since this is a clever test designed to identify replicants.  While the Jaaaaags are 21-23 years old, they are available in new condition with only delivery miles.  The Zonda R is built to order.  Answering with both won’t work in this scenario because the number of Jags is too high of a crash load for our staff to handle.

There can be only one.

The warehouse is full of these waiting for someone to claim them all.

The winners all receive access to the employee of the month parking spot next to the loading dock.  I am then able to use that as an additional test.  The loading dock is the spot where the majority of our vehicle mishaps occur, and it is the closest spot to the cellular dead zone in our lot.  Several of the lower tier employees fight over access to the spot because they never realize they are supposed to be sharing access.  They are never promoted within AcMo, but I always furnish them with stellar written reports during their exit meetings.  My hope is that they will propagate into AcMo’s competitors’ organizations and destroy them from within without trying.

The smart ones who decline to park in the spot receive a promotion within two weeks of making the decision.  Little quizzes like this are so informative and fun.  In fact, I think it would benefit AcMo to blend the psychological warfare department with the pop quiz department so that both could progress to the next level.

I have also sporadically used the red pill vs. blue pill quiz to find the higher thinkers.  The pills are both placebos, but of course we don’t tell the recipients that.  The red pill takers are demoted because of their selection, while the others are given their choice of future assignments.  I had to eliminate the option of taking both pills after we had too many ER visits as a result.  The mind is a powerful toy and it can convince the body something is wrong when it isn’t.  My favorite answer is to abstain from taking either pill because that shows the capability to think outside traditional parameters, and an aversion toward pharmaceutical tools being used as productivity enhancers.  AcMo needs that type of thinking to thrive in this environment.

A power combination of psychological departments will enhance office dynamics and make things exciting around here again.  We need something to keep us motivated during the off-season.  Watching racing on television isn’t the same as being involved.