ABSTRACT
An efficiency consultant spends the day watching two municipal employees. All day long the consultant watches as one worker digs a small hole in the ground while the other watches. Then the second fills the same hole in again while the first employee watches. This pattern is repeated many times over the course of the day. Eventually the consultant can contain his frustration no longer. ‘Do you not realize how ridiculous and inefficient this is?’ he exclaims. ‘Of course,’ says one of the employees, ‘but the guy who plants the seeds is on holiday.’
