I am looking for singers (male & female), preferably with Tamil knowledge, lyricists, drummers, keyboard players, flutists, guitarists for my album. If you are interested, please leave a comment or contact me via my profile page

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Cost Cutting

The term 'Cost Cutting' was made famous post-dot-com-bust era. Everyone has heard it been used, sometimes, closer to heart, sometimes farther away from it. What would be life, if we can't make fun of it and have a few hearty laughs at the expense of 'Cost Cutting'.

A multi-million dollar company - ( yeah which company will be run for less than a million, the CEO's salary would eat most of it :P ) - suddenly, faces the heat from the board/investors. These are the first few steps they will take

* They will convene a board-meeting at the costliest hotel ever known to mankind and decide 'Cost cutting' is the only way out.

* To set the cost-cutting process in motion, the first item that will save them millions of dollars is...... pen. Yes, the number of pens that will be available will be cut-down. You will have 5-10 pens for about 100 people in an office. Ofcourse, there is a good reason for this move - are you not using 'e'-verything ? why do you need a pen ?

* If you don't need pen, why do you need papers ?. There will be this circular that will be printed on the costliest color-printer based stationery, which will break the news that, printers will not be equipped with papers anymore. However, you are free to bring your own papers to print out what you need.

It will be announced that, the initial cost-cutting measures will give the company much needed savings, that the senior management, will now declare a raise for themsevles.

* Few months, later, the board convenes yet again in the costliest hotel ever, and takes a 'hard' look at the numbers and decide the cost-savings is not good enough and decide to hire a consulting firm to help them identify measures of cost-cutting and agree to pay them $500k. The consultants would come in and identify, many more items in the stationery drawer that need not be around, like, stapler, clips, glue, files, folders etc.

* Toilet tissue usage will be rationed as well. Higher your grade, more tissues you will get. Usage over-and-above your quota, would be directly deducted from your salary.

* Restrooms breaks will be clocked.

* Trash cans will not be provided. You have take care of throwing out your own trash.

* Fresh air savings scheme will be introduced to reduce the A.C/Electricity costs

* Musical chairs will be introduced for desks. To cut down on cost of playing music, the division boss will take care of croon'ing and he will never stop ;)

* Mouse pads will be auctioned off.

* Only ONE machine will have internet connectivity for the entire company. That desk, will obviously not have a chair.

* Telephones will be replaced with throw-away plastic cups tied together via shoe laces. Yes, you silly - you will have to supply the shoe-laces. Ofcourse, you can't talk to anyone but your colleague next door.

* You have the option of, deferring your weekly salary, interest free until Y3K. And you have to personally appear to collect the same. To compensate for the non-availability of weekly pay, you will be offered a loan with low-interest rate of 10%.

Few more things will happen, including hiking the severance pay of the CEO, because his services are needed during the crisis and they want to retain him.

Ultimately, the company will go bankrupt and the high cost of human resources will be blamed for the disaster.

The business model of the company, 'eTrash' - check the status of your trash can at home, anytime online - was sound enough ! and it was too bad, the employees let the company down.

P.S: While you are busy commenting, let me go check whether someone has already patented this idea :P

Disclaimer : Any coincidences to companies living or dead is purely accidental and unintentional. If it did, I admire your company's cost-cutting strategies - are you hiring ?. If it did not, i can run the cost-cutting-office for you, on one-condition, that whatever you plan on saving, you should alteast give me 200% of that :-)

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Arvind.

corporate world a ye nasam pannitinga :)

how abt sending a copy of this to u r CEO

Kavya

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Kavya,

Lol :-)

SamY said...

ha ha gud one ;) ... but very fictitious ...

well truth being ... allowances (pizzas for overnight work and transport back home) wud be cut ... which is usually a mojor incentive for staying late ...

team building activities would be cut ... so less prospect for finding a soul mate :p ... @ least a gf for now

n.o. of resources on many projects would be cut ... basically to screw ur happiness ... unpaid OT ... only for a few commendable words

no more team lunches ... "guys we really don't have time for this now"

oh yeah u'll be given a sh*t of a computer to do number crunching ops ... no more upgrades ... u can initiate stuff have ur coffee n be back to continue it ;)

n dhadha its not diclaimer but a nice way to thwart potential requests

Ram C said...

absoultely right.... my employer has also started doing all these things.. one of the irritating issue is sharing of a telephone when two or three need to attend differnt calls. I observed that as idiotic.

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Samy,

I never knew cost cutting had such a 'gf' implication. Then i dont want earn the wrath/curses of thai-kulam by recommending cost-cutting.

Will read more about ur comments and get back ;

OP,

So you are still around the horizon huhh :-) ? Hows the fall semster treating you ?

Ram,

I strongly suggest following the water-cup/shoe-lace technique ;)

cosmicblob said...

One hit-below-the-belt cost cut missing on your list...

* Need a soda? Don't do your laundry.

And warn us if you r ever gonna be on the board of a company... :-P

Nice post! :-)

(afgaz)

SamY said...

btw what I said was not my experience but my observation :) ... so dont start imagining and ask for advise ... I can act as a referal tho ;)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

CB,

Quarters dont help anymore :P

Me on some company's board - :-D
i promise i won't implement all of these ideas :P

Samy,
"referral" ??? :-D

Dawg, i did not know you had such a leisure time pass :P

pk said...

Ada daa romba yosikeringa. I dont work in the company if UR the Boss LOL.

Ganesh said...

whats going on ?
some of them are already being implemented

Zeppelin said...

oh my god !! i just had to memorize a tech doc... :)

btw, have you seen Jerry Maguire ? ;)

Zeppelin said...

it'd be cool if they had a customised printing dialog box...which popped up a message saying.. "DUH ! cost-cutting, remember ? "

:D

Zeppelin said...

also have u seen Office Space ?

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Kali-ma et all,

This is just an exaggerated attempt at making fun of cost-cutting - not suggestions :-D

I will def. create a post for you as 'creative' designer ! :-)

Ganesh,

already implemented ? which one :P

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Arun,
Jerry maguire :-D soooooore

Arun,
that was a good idea - will add a 'copy'right symbol next to the copier/printer :)

Arun,
Office space was sooooo much fun :-)

Zeppelin said...

hehehe...

any ideas of implementing Office Space ? ;)

Kasthuri said...

Cutting down toilet tissues in offices is kinda okay. Can't imagine if they fall short in airplanes...:-)

SamY said...

ha ha "Office Space" ... I love that movie ... idea of spending some time-out just doin NUTHIN is nice indeed ...

lovely movie ;) ... implementing it ha ha ... romba veebhareedhamane aalu than ... modella let em start layoffs ... then u can impress the interviewers with ur musical genius (@arvind & @arun) ... :p

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Arun,

Nice original idea :P

OP,
Ouch - do find time for some 18 hour sessions ;)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Kasthuri,

Now you are taking it too seriously :-D

Samy,

Music,Philosophy nu edhayum edhayum mudichu podara nee ?

Agnibarathi said...

Hmmm...I don't believe this guy. He is not an IT professional. He is a HR professional landed from Mars trying to pose as an IT guy...possibly Catbert, the evil HR manager!!!

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Agni,

:-D - can you hear the evil laughter ?

if you can't, for a low-price, the company will arrange for free-ear-check-up, the result can be picked up via the standard template on the web.

if you want it done for a lower price, you can even skip the test and pick up the result right away ;)

Rags said...

Good thing dude...you did not implement any cost cutting in Email Delivery...

Imagine people running up and down the aisle delivering the messages Orally...

btw how would send an attachment?

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Rags,

reminds me of the ad by IBM..

"Hi, I sent an email about the email service being not available - did you get it ?"

:P

Anonymous said...

Your writing is very impressive, lovable and funny.

Anonymous said...

Your writing is very impressive, lovable and funny.

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Anonymous,

Thanks

Anonymous,

Thanks :-)

Ganesh said...

arvind cost cutting
apparam next blogcuttinga

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Ganesh,

blog cutting ? :-?

Krish said...

As a cost cutting measure the CEO has realized that even existing (retained) employees need not be paid a salary. He/she has decided to dump all the excess furniture/computers/miscellaneous equipment on the employees and have them go out and sell them and make do with whatever they get for their monthly needs. The CEO has found that this eliminates selling and administrative expenses also and kills two birds with one stone :-)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Thennavan,

LOL - that was innovative, can i add to my patent :P ?