Are you old enough to remember going to open registration in the gym during freshman year of college? Waiting in line for a whole day and trying to avoid any unnaturally early 8 AM classes. Such a waste of time had a silver lining as it gave me a chance to make some new friends in the queue. If we look hard enough, bottlenecks can provide some creative opportunities.
Unless you’re trying to apply for a patent, build a monopoly, or hold off an army – for most of us, bottlenecks are an annoying loss of efficiency and delay to our gratification as we slowly drip the ketchup onto our golden french fries. Fortunately, the internet has reduced bottlenecks by granting us simultaneous access for making transactions. And unless you happen upon an ancient bureaucracy or a grocery checkout during a blizzard warning, long lines have become a relic of the past. Until now.
I’m not alone in noticing that this week, this___ has to happen before that____. I’m waiting for an appointment with the only local welder to patch my sinking boat. He can’t work because the scheduling office is closed for Covid. My plumber is back from his home country but too booked up to fix my running toilet. The sales women is working from home and can’t place my order for 20 more copies of Creative You until she is back in the office. My painter is waiting for his power-washer guy to become available before he can make any repairs. I tried to order pimento leaves for my smoker but my source in Jamaica is out of stock… of leaves?
This is not just my problem. The just-in-time supply chain has been reported as habitually tardy. While the little league needs an umpire to play baseball, our automotive manufactures can build cars but have a macro-shortage of microchips to control the surround sound system and automatic headrests. Butcher shops can’t “meet” demand (apologies), and according to Reuters, we are a country out of zippers and “Shortages of metals, plastics, wood and even liquor bottles are now the norm.”
Sometimes bottlenecks aren’t even at the bottlenecks. Have you noticed the people at Lea & Perrins made the pin hole in their Worcestershire sauce spout a lot larger?
Find a bottleneck and break the glass with a creative solution to bring back the flow.
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