Free Enterprise at Work
As I was heading home a few weeks ago, one of my co-workers was headed the same way and we got to talking. He was going to pick up boxes of Girl Scout cookies for his daughter, who was of course the Girl Scout in question. I observed that there is a particular type of cookie that I especially love, and I described it although I could not remember the name.
The next day, as I was cleaning out my desk, he brought me a box of Samoas. Yes, that was exactly the type I like, so I immediately bought the box. I shared out my cookies with my neighbors, who asked suspiciously if I had found them in the back of my desk. I assured them that, no, the cookies were completely fresh, and pointed out that I had gotten them from Steve.
They immediately called Steve over and wanted to order cookies from him. He was totally unprepared — he had no catalog and no order forms — but we’re computer people, so someone googled up the Girl Scout cookie website so everyone could see what was available, and he wrote the orders on a piece of scrap paper.
Having escaped from that group, he bowed to the inevitable and sent out an email offering cookies to everyone in the office. He told me later that in an hour and a half, he had orders for 130 boxes.
He had not been prepared to take orders because he had thought it an imposition on his co-workers to expect them to help out his daughter. But free enterprise will out …