A little Sunday Humor...

A little Sunday morning humor in an email that has been passed around--if anyone knows the author please advise:

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had seven people steering and two people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and
paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, two area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the two people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers.

There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channelled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters. The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses. The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's
racing team was out-sourced to India. Sadly, the End.

Here is something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they cannot make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses

life's musings...

I simply cannot wrap my tiny head around it.

I just found out yesterday that a friend of mine killed herself about 2 weeks ago--Nov. 19th to be exact.

Now she was the type of friend where we could go months without talking and catch up and be back in the swing of things in a heartbeat. She was a firecracker...smart as a whip...and apparently untreated type 1 bipolar. And a mom to a beautiful 8 year old girl.

I simply cannot wrap my head around it.

Peace
kodiacbear