RUNNING TH3 NUMB3R5

I've never one for stating the obvious. Moreover, I've never been one to write a report to state the obvious. But I've done it. Oh, yes, I've done it.

Before the well-publicized hiring frenzy at ePrize it was pulling teeth to get new bodies into the Production Department. There were arguments, there were justifications, there were pleads, and there were reports.

I was told by my boss that, according to one weekly report that our comptroller provided, my department should be running at 75% efficiency. As it was, the overworked and underpaid group was running at 110% on average. That means that more than every hour of their days were billable (lunch isn't billable, remember). So, I broke out my abacus to cypher the correct number of employees to put people down to 75%. I was so proud of myself, I even figured in vacation time for the current amount of employees plus the time allotted for any new folks (though piddly it be).

I gussied it up, threw in some charts, and all that jazz and presented it formally to my boss.

Again with the punchline: "We reconsidered that number last week. We actually think that people should be working at 85%."

Okay, so even at that amount, we need more employees. "Write it out and submit it. We'll think about it."