Engineers and Lazy People.

When I worked at the clubs one of the opening managers duties was to stock the beer bar, busy work I think.  One day our GM was there and noticed how I stocked it because it was different than pretty much everyone else.  I told him that it was a trick I picked up from A****.  He doesn't like A**** and mentioned how lazy people make the best engineers.  At first I laughed along with him but then I was annoyed.

I'm not an engineer but I'm definitely lazy.  Even when I'm doing a lot of work it's because I think it will be less work in the long run.  I'm fascinated by systems that companies use to reduce wasted work.  It could be something as simple as a spreadsheet to audit the register at the end of the night to something as involved as inventing a new gadget.

Let's take as an example the Pygmy's from Africa.  Just like every other human they don't do well in a fight against most animals unless they use their brains.  They hunt elephants; hunting elephants or antelope is going to be the same amount of work, because that's the most meat for the tribe.  How do they do this?  Some lazy Pygmy decided to get his buddies to help him and they dug a pit.  This lazy guy then covered the pit and they lured a elephant over it.  Gravity does the rest; if necessary, they can use spears if gravity slacks off.  This lazy guy and his (or her) buddies now have a lot of meat and hide to eat and use.  All because one person was too lazy to run in the savanna looking for food to spear.

The saying about not reinventing the wheel makes a lot of sense to me.  You don't have to do the same work over and over again, unless you can do it better.  Take the wheel for example, there is a huge difference between racing tires for a bicycle compared to mountain bike tires.  They are both superficially the same and you can do both rides with each tire but the one that is specialized for your ride will make a better ride for you.  Why are there different styles of tires?  Because some lazy rider was tired of changing his flat racing tires when he went out into the mountain trails.

Call inventors and innovators lazy if you want, we are the ones you go to when you have a problem.

By the way, the trick with beer bars was to open the beer case upside down, remove the divider, and fold the flaps down again.  Place into the beer bar right side up pull the cardboard case up, the bottom flaps will slowly open and leave the two dozen beers in place.  Fast as hell, but you don't need a full case of most beers in the beer bar.