Sometimes the complexity of doing anything in business is jaw dropping in its silliness. Though I may understand the reasons behind it, I can’t help but be perpetually annoyed by the ridiculousness we as a species lose sight of…
Example:
Business 1 (BS1) gets mad at Business 2 (BS2) for not picking up goods they have arranged to buy from BS1’s Warehouse on 12-31-14. BS2 doesn’t make the pickup until 01-01-15.
Why is it so important that that date be hit? What is the big deal?
The sales date that BS1 can claim is based on the pickup date, and the one day difference in pickup means the sale now counts against BS1’s revenue for 2015 instead of 2014. This, through a series of related economic factors, contributes to a slight reduction in the stock value of BS1 for 2014. Which contributes to someone getting a smaller bonus. This results in a series of sh*ts-rolling-down-hills within BS1’s corporate hierchy, until someone is identified as the entity of blame within BS1. This individual then pushes said ‘blame’ over to BS2, and a similar rolling of sh*t routine plays out within BS2.
It really is like moving a turd from one hill to the next.
When entity of blame is identified in BS2, they then reach out and accuse the company responsible for their trucking/pickups. They claim, “the trucking schedule was not able to accommodate one more pickup before the end of the year.”
Who does the trucking company do? They shrug their shoulders, and say “do you know how hard it is to find a truck at the end of year, everyone and their mother is trying to move cargo,” and let’s not forget “The HOLIDAY,” there just wasn’t any equipment and/or truckers available.
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Makes senses, until you step back and realize that a year is a completely human made up dividing line; a date that someone decided to mark the end of the Earth’s Orbital cycle around the sun. That it could have been any other day. That companies all over the world rush to get product out the door towards the end of December to give the illusion of selling more product within a certain period. Course, the immediate consequence, is that BS2 needs fewer products at the beginning of the 2015 because they were pushed to over stock (likely at a huge discount) at the end of 2014 aka arbitrary dividing line date of 12-31.
I see this every year…so far this 2014 is no different. To those who don’t work in an office day to day, you’d be amazed how often business creates importance out of something that would otherwise be just another day.