Mega Corp - as I have mentioned before has a joint venture with a foreign company, the CEO of which is treated like a god everywhere he goes. I mean Mega corp's CEO gets his share of obscenely ridiculous ass kissing too but this is just beyond the level of obsequious that should ever be extended to any mere mortal. Professional Athletes, Rock stars, and Heads of State are not sucked up to like this.
For example - one time when he came to visit the agenda sent in advance by his staff said he would have drinks at the home of our division president in her garden his first evening in town. Our division president suggested a change in venue - since just having moved here she didn't really have much of a garden to drink in. Reasonable yes? Apparently not. The foreign god wanted drinks in her garden so we hired a freaken landscaping company to trek out to her new house and install ~$10,000 worth of garden for his visit.
I shit you not!!!
So, anyway, back to the peaches.
I was privileged* enough to be invited to dine with the foreign god once. For dessert we had a single peach each. It was peeled, sliced and arranged artistically on a small dessert plate. Each person's peach was hand carried out individually on a silver tray and presented with great flourish. I thought the showmanship was odd but the peach was tasty so what ever. I later learned that per the foreign gods instructions these were very special peaches we had been served. They came from a special orchard where each fruit on every tree is electronically monitored to be sure it is picked at the absolute perfect moment of ripeness and shipped same day to where ever it is being served in special temperature controlled individual packaging. Each peach cost $250. With 20 people present that dessert (not counting all the servers to carry them individually) cost the company $5000!!!
I have a few questions about this. And as a share holder as well as an employee of Mega Corp I think I am entitled to answers to insure we got value for that money.
What research was done into the ripening of peaches - how do I know they were measuring the correct parameters to insure I got my peach at the absolute pinnacle of ripeness?
What maintenance and calibration is done on the monitoring equipment to insure there are no faulty readings?
How do they uniquely identify each fruit to insure there are no mix ups once they are picked and separated from their monitoring equipment? Perhaps my peach was swapped with one that was picked a day later accidentally. How would they / I know? I mean besides the obviously imperfectly ripened taste - but isn't that a little late to be finding out!!!
How in the world do they manage to insure that the correct number of fruits ripen together at precisely the right time for an event like this?
What is the quality control system of the shipment process? what if the temperature is not perfectly and uniformly maintained in the shipping process. Or, dear lord, if a shipment got delayed?!?
I could go on - but really you get the point - I think a full audit is called for here. After all - Its important that we be fiscally responsible.
* no sarcasm here at ALL
1 comments:
I'm stunned. I, on the other hand, work for an organization that is so paralyzed by the opinions of its stakeholders (we don't exactly have shareholders, but we do have interested parties who care a great deal about what we do), that they cheap out on just about everything.
Unfortunatley, this means that a lot of important stuff never gets the funding it deserves. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure I won't be served any worth-their-weight-in-gold peaches any time soon! :o)
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