The CEO of FloorMart, a low cost retail
company, also served on the board of his community's symphony orchestra.
Finding that he could not go to one of the concerts, he gave his tickets
to the company's CFO, who just implemented a new companywide cost control
system. The next morning, he asked the CFO how he enjoyed the performance.
Instead of the usual polite remarks, the CFO handed him a memo which
read as follows:
The undersigned submits the following
comments and recommendations relative to the performance of Schubert's
"Unfinished symphony" by this city's symphony orchestra
as observed under actual working conditions:
The attendance of the conductor is unnecessary
for public performances. The orchestra has obviously practiced and
has the prior authorization from the conductor to play the symphony at
a predetermined level of quality. Considerable
money could be saved merely by having the conductor
critique the orchestra's performance during a retrospective
peer review meeting.
For considerable periods, the
four oboe players had nothing to do. Their numbers should
be reduced, and their work spread over the whole
orchestra, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity.
All 12 violins were playing identical
notes with identical motions. This is unnecessary
duplication: the staff of this section should be cut drastically
with consequent savings. If a large volume of sound is required,
this could be obtained through electronic amplification,
which has reached very high levels of reproductive quality.
Much effort was expended playing 16th
notes or semi-quavers. This seems an excessive refinement, as most
of the listeners are unable to distinguish such rapid playing. It
is recommended that all notes be rounded up to the nearest eighth.
If this is done, it
would also be possible to use trainees and lower grade musicians with
no loss of quality.
No useful purpose would appear to be served
by repeating with horns the same passage that has already been handled
by the strings. If all such redundant passages
were eliminated, as determined by the utilization review committee,
the concert would have been reduced from
two hours to about 20 minutes, resulting in substantial savings in salaries
and overhead.
In fact, if Schubert had addressed
these concerns on a cost containment basis, he
probably would have been able to finish this symphony!
:-)
