[959] in Humor
HUMOR: Reengineering the family
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Wed Jul 5 09:54:54 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Cc: ljr@MIT.EDU, pug@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 1995 09:49:37 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1995 10:24:01 -0700
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
From: scott_schroeder@ins.com (Scott Schroeder)
From: Judah_DuShey@ins.com (Judah DuShey)
>From the Wall Street Journal Friday June 16, 1995.
Re-Engineering the Family
By Seth Lieberman
I cheerfully returned to New York to visit my parents and celebrate
Father's Day with my Dad. I knew something was amiss when, as he opened the
door and I stepped in, he said, "Before you unpack your suitcase, I need to
ask for your input."
"Sure Dad," I said. "What's up?"
"I don't want the fact that you're a stakeholder to distort anything you
might say. Promise me you'll think objectively."
"OK," I said. "Shoot."
"Well, sometimes people get defensive, and they want to know why..."
"Enough already, Dad. What's going on?"
"Re-engineering the family," he said, with a stern look on his face.
"I can tell this is going to be one of those long conversations. I'm
going to get a beer from the fridge," I said with a sigh.
"Wait right here. Before you start using up scarce liquid resources, I
want to know what you think are our essential familial processes."
"What the heck are you talking about, Dad?"
"You know, what is it that we as a family do? In this time of scarcity
and the global village, we can't merely repeat what we've always done. We
have to eliminate waste and redundancy. Rather than tinkering with an
obviously outmoded form, it's better to start from scratch, and determine
what it is that we do."
"Well, we go out to the movies sometimes," I volunteered.
"True," he said, "but one person can do that alone."
"We have bagels and lox together on Sunday mornings."
"Yes, but one person can also do that. You haven't even lived in the same
building with us for over 12 years."
"Enough about that, Dad. We've already talked about my growing up and
leaving home. But there is something we do while we're eating bagels and
lox that you can't do alone. we have conversations." I smiled, because I
knew I finally had him.
Without even pausing, he said: "But that's making an assumption based on
prevous limitations of technology. I can eat my bagel and lox, and phone
any one of a billion people while sitting here enjoying the spaciousness of
my dining room table."
"OK, you're right on that one." I searched my memory for a way to stump
him. "How's this? In the family we also love each other. You'll admit
that, won't you? Remember how joyful you were during Pam's wedding? You
gushed about how you felt for your only daughter to get married."
"Who wouldn't be joyful?" he countered. "I had managed to divest myself
of an uncompetitive product in a declining industry."
"Shush, I can't believe you're say that. If Mom overhears you, she'll
scream. Hey, where is Mom, anyway?"
"Redundancy results in a failure to compete. It was for the good of the
family."
"Dad, what the heck has gotten into you?"
"Multiskill roles. On the way back from work, I pick up the groceries.
When I get home, I toss up a tuna salad, eat it, wash the dishes, kiss
myself on the hand, and go to sleep. Studies show that doing multiple tasks
is the best antidote for boredom."
"That's brutal."
"Doing more with less, I call it. The family's shaping up, if you ask me,
though there still are a few kinks of redundancy left to hammer out."
"You don't mean...?"
"Yes," he said, and handed me a pen and a piece of paper filled with legal
jargon. It was a termination agreement for me to sign. As I hesitated, he
said, "If you sign now, you'll get a bag of free bagels and six months at
the outplacement firm."
"An outplacement firm for a son. Who'll take me at my age?" I gasped.
"I can't take care of you forever," he said, and motioned toward the door.
- --Mr. Lieberman is an organization development consultant based in Takoma
Park, Md.
* ========= Connie Kleinjans (connie@interserve.com) ========= *
* "Humor. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to send it." *
* ======= Humorous, thanks to InterServe, 415-328-4333 ======= *
