No Soap in the Restroom? Blame the mortgage crisis!!! So typical… and characteristic

Here’s a funny story gleaned from nytimes. This may or may not be true, most likely, the bureaucracy in Bank of America did think it up but retracted once it was publicized. When i read this article, i remembered another incident quite some time back where we too faced shortage of soap in the rest room because there was a cost cutting drive in progress.

Sadly this is a typical response of any well honed bureaucrat to cost cutting initiatives. If you are inclined to delve into the reasons of such behavior, it would typically lead you to human nature and incentives for behavior. It is the HR of the organization that really needs to have its head examined if it has not reacted immediately and very strongly to such attempts in an organization. As mentioned in this article by Daniel Gross in Slate, the impact on employee morale is simply too large to calculate.

Here’s a follow up article for a few more laughs.

Most importantly, if you own a stock, and in terms of employee numbers it is a medium scale organizatin, the moment an incident like this comes to life do not consider the stock for long term investment.