TO: All Employees

FROM: The President

SUBJECT: Maintaining Productivity

My Fellow Employees:

All of us here at the Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co. are doing our best to realize the goal of maintaining a productive work environment, meaning of course a work environment in which productive work is produced.

A productive work environment necessarily depends on the environment in which the work takes place. That is to say, in order to ensure that productive work is produced, the work must be produced in a productive environment. A productive environment, therefore, is defined as an environment in which productive production takes place. I believe I make myself clear.

It has been brought to my attention that the wall-to-wall carpeting in the main building, which was installed only last year with the specific intent of making the environment in the building more productive, is already showing signs of wear in certain places where foot traffic is especially heavy. This degradation of the carpet leads to a concomitant degradation of the productivity of the environment, as it is an axiom of modern business theory that no truly productive work can be accomplished on a worn carpet. Degradations of productivity must be corrected wherever they appear if productivity is not ultimately to be degraded. I have therefore taken it upon myself to devise a plan by which degradation of productivity, by which in this case I mean degradation of the carpet, may be arrested, and for the future avoided.

For that reason, all employees will be assigned particular pedestrian routes going forward. Employees going backward will be assigned different routes. The assignments will be made as follows: All employees having even-numbered telephone extensions will enter the building by the northwest entrance, and all employees having odd-numbered telephone extensions will enter the building by the southeast entrance. Upon entering the building, you will find your name and your assigned route for the day posted on the bulletin board opposite the door. Please take one of the building plans that will be made available on the table under the bulletin board, and mark your route for the day with one of the chained markers. You will be required to adhere to this route, and all deviations will be met with appropriate disciplinary action. In this way we shall be able to distribute the wear on the carpet on a scientific basis.

It has been observed that the so-called “break” room, which is the small room containing the water fountain and the coffee maker, is a particularly heavily used area, and the carpet leading to it has shown immoderate wear. For that reason, the water fountain will be disconnected effective immediately, and the coffee maker will be moved to a different location each day, to be announced on the bulletin board next to the route assignments for the day.

The bathrooms are also centers of heavy traffic. Because it is not practical to move the toilets and sinks on a daily basis, employees will be limited to one bathroom visit per day. It will therefore be in your interest to plan ahead.

By making these simple adjustments to your habits, we can ensure that the work environment of the Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co. remains a productive one for many years to come. I am certain that you, my dedicated fellow employees, feel as enthusiastic about that prospect as I do.

Sincerely,

J. Rutherford Pinckney,

President