Ahoy there landlubbers and readers of "The Editorial". Last month I intimated that many of you read this while flying. Not true apparently! Some of you are reading this while on cruise ships and sipping gin and tonic. The demographic of the readership is obviously a lot older than I thought. I now have horrible visions of people with blue rinses, walk socks, panama hats and roman sandals swaying to and fro on an ocean breeze and asking when the bingo gets underway.

This month we turn our acerbic communication diatribe to a brief examination of the concept of company policy and ask ‘why? ‘ because it appears that no one else is!

Read fast… for some of you the clock is ticking and the life memberships are not worth what they used to be!

Airline Pricing Policies

First, let me take a moment to remind you of how ordinary hardware stores like Mitre 10 or Bunnings sell paint.

Customer: Gidday mate, how much is your paint?
Hardware Dude (or dude-ess): Well we have normal quality paint for $18 a litre or we have premium paint for $25. How many litres would you like?
Customer: Five litres of your normal paint thanks.
Hardware Dude (or dude-ess): No worries… that will be $90. Cash or credit?

Now, imagine you are buying paint from an airline. First you spend days trying to reach them by phone to ask if they have paint. Nobody answers. So you drive to your local Qantas, Air NZ, Virgin or Jetstar store.

Customer: Gidday mate, how much is your paint?
Airline Dude (all dude-esses are at 30,000 feet): Well, sir, that all depends on quite a lot of things.
Customer: Can you give me an estimate? Is there an average price?
Airline Dude: Our lowest price is $12 a litre, and we have 60 different prices up to $200 a litre.
Customer: What’s the difference in the paint?
Airline Dude: Oh, there isn’t any difference; it’s all the same paint.
Customer: Well, then I’d like some of that $12 paint.
Airline Dude: When do you intend to use the paint?
Customer: I want to paint tomorrow. It’s my day off.
Airline Dude: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.
Customer: When would I have to paint to get the $12 paint?
Airline Dude: You would have to start very late at night in about 3 weeks. But you will have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.
Customer: You’ve got to be kidding!
Airline Dude: We never kid sir. I’ll check and see if we have any paint available.
Customer: You have shelves FULL of paint! I can see it!
Airline Dude: But it doesn’t mean that we have paint available. We sell only a certain number of litres on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price per litre just went up to $16. We don’t have any more $12 paint.
Customer: The price went up as we were talking?

Airline Dude: Yes, sir. We change the prices and rules hundreds of times day, and since you haven’t actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. I suggest you purchase your paint as soon as possible. How many litres do you want?

Customer: Well, maybe five litres. Make that six, so I’ll have enough.

Airline Dude: Oh no, sir, you can’t do that. If you buy paint and don’t use it, there are penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.

Customer: WHAT?

Airline Dude: We can sell enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will lose your remaining litres of paint.

Customer: What does it matter whether I use all the paint? I already paid you for it!

Airline Dude: We make plans based upon the idea that all our paint is used, every drop. If you don’t use it all, it causes us all sorts of problems.

Customer: This is crazy!! I suppose something terrible happens if I don’t keep painting until after Saturday night!

Airline Dude: Oh yes! Every litre you bought automatically becomes the $200 paint.

Customer: But what are all these "Paint on sale from $10 a litre" signs?

Airline Dude: Well, that’s for our budget paint. It only comes in half-litres. One $5 half-litre will do half a room. The second half-litre to complete the room is $20. None of the cans have labels, some are empty and there are no refunds, even on the empty cans.

Customer: To hell with this! I’ll buy what I need somewhere else!

Airline Dude: I don’t think so, sir. You may be able to buy paint for your bathroom and bedrooms, and your kitchen and dining room from someone else, but you won’t be able to paint your connecting hall and stairway from anyone but us. And I should point out sir, that if you paint in only one direction, it will be $300 a litre.

Customer: I thought your most expensive paint was $200!

Airline Dude: That’s if you paint around the room to the point at which you started. A hallway is different.

Customer: And if I buy $200 paint for the hall, but only paint in one direction, you’ll confiscate the remaining paint?

Airline Dude: No, we’ll charge you an extra use fee plus the difference on your next litre of paint. But I believe you’re getting the idea now sir.

Customer: You’re insane!

Airline Dude: That may be sir but we’re now THIS COUNTRY’S only full service paint supplier! And don’t go looking for bargains! We appreciate you had a choice today so thanks for painting with us.

Next time we ‘ll do buying paint from a mobile phone company – an even bigger nightmare!

Monkey Business…

Here is an experiment you can conduct at home. Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, one of your monkeys will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray him and all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey will make an attempt to climb the stairs and grab the banana. Again, as soon as he touches the stairs spray him and all the other monkeys with cold water. Do this every time and pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him and beat the living daylights out of his little monkey body. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted to within an inch of his life.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is immediately attacked by the other monkeys. The previous newcomer takes part in the collective beating with great enthusiasm despite the fact he has no idea as to why he is doing it! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.

More often than not in the business world we call that ‘company policy ‘. So much of what companies give us is nothing more than half-brained, knee-jerk reactions to circumstances that have long become irrelevant. Sadly, the remaining policy becomes embedded in everything they do and is zealously enforced by the resident monkeys long conditioned not to question why. Unless you like the idea of being an advocate of monkey business all of us have a responsibility to have a look at what we are doing and ask ourselves… ‘Why? ‘