Couple Of Nutty Things That Bug Us

Dum, Dumber & Dumbest

"Knowledge Worker:" The brainiacs at McKinsey send me their Quarterly Review just about every week, which makes you wonder what calendars these folks use, while making gazzillions holding senior managements' hands. Today, they sent us a new piece about the "knowledge work" and the 21st Century needs of "knowledge workers." This only bothered us a little, until we figured out they were referring to us; and then it bothered us a lot.

Why would anyone hire a company and pay them huge fees, if they use language like this? Let's send a clear message to planet McKinsey, "Stop using the term Knowledge Worker!" This sentence is, we suppose, filled with knowledge, and it certainly took work to think it up, but we call it....writing. Some folks put actual fenders on automobiles in a factory, it takes knowledge, but we call them automobile workers. Some people think up ways to build bridges, parks, and skyscrapers, and we call them engineers, designers or architects.

Okay, by finding a single term for all of these people, McKinsey might be simplifying things. But, we must do better: Come to think of it, is there any kind of worker who is not a knowledge worker? No! There are only degrees of knowledge; every worker has knowledge.

I am going to City Hall right now. I am sure that I will find people there with knowledge. They will know how to do or not do what I would like them to do. Or maybe they will take a lot longer to do it than I would like if they do it at all. Their snow-knowledge crew broke my fence while plowing snow; the snow-knowledge person was obviously not a fence-knowledge person. The City Hall compensation-knowledge person is likely to find my notary-knowledge person's stamp on my letter with attached photos to be lacking in some way. This will cause a delay in decision-knowledge regarding my claim.

Will the snow melt in spring before the City reimburses us for the fence repair knowledge-person's work? As our great friend and Answer-Knowledge-person Eight Ball might say, "Highly Likely."

"Milk Fat" Explained: Have you been thinking that the 1% Milk, or Low Fat Milk you've been buying has 99% less fat than "Whole Milk?" Not exactly. These percentages measure the Butterfat content of milk. Butter itself is 80% BF-butterfat.

"Whole" Milk contains only 3.25% BF, not 100% as some might think. Are you with us? And 2% or Reduced Fat Milk? Right, 2% BF and only about a third less BF than Whole Milk.

Skimmed? Right, 0-.5% BF. Half & Half? A whopping 12.5%, almost 3X the BF of Whole Milk, since it's half cream and half whole (sorry) milk!

Milk knowledge-persons could do a Whole lot better explaining this stuff to us, don't you think? And, don't we feel 100%  better about that 3.25% BF Whole Milk? We do. Dump the H&H though. Deadly stuff.

We have more where these came from, Pilgrims.

Ed Note: Tip, when dealing with City Hall, sometimes it pays to go at lunch time. In my case, everyone was out, except the City Manager himself. He reviewed my case on the spot, gave me his card, and said to get an estimate directly to him. That is a knowledge worker. For real, so far.

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