ARE YOU THE SPEEDER? WAITING LINES AND VARIABILITY: THEIR EFFECT ON YOUR BUSINESS

The other day was a great lesson for a 12-year-old on . A girl in her twenties was late for something and speeding in her Camry through traffic. She swerved through cars and signals as her impatience grew to get somewhere on time. It just so happened that she was taking the same route through town as the car the sixth grade girl was riding in to school. No matter how much the girl in the Camry rushed, the car the little girl was riding in always pulled up to the same light as her. Needless to say, the driver of the car taking the girl to school (me) was obeying the traffic laws and still getting to the same place at the same time until the frantic girl in the Camry decided to blatantly run a red light.

It was a great lesson in variability for a sixth grader. It was pointed out that the girl in the Camry was frantic and risking traffic violations but the variability inherent in the traffic lights and other drivers got her nowhere any faster.

Another recent episode saw a 15-minute outpatient surgery procedure for her relative turn into a 3 ½ hour wait. “Sorry”, was said multiple times by the office staff to the waiting girl to drive this relative home (again me). They said they had fallen very behind at the hospital surgical center. Falling behind had turned into a 3 ½…