Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends how far away her desk is.
Yeah, I think i would make it “put this card in the reorder box”
And then they have to poll the reorder box every day?
Milk Kanban
21–30 of 173 posts
Re: Milk Kanban
#22While this can be mitigated somewhat by keeping backups on hand, the card helps because it gives you a convenient record of needing to restock, which you can just drop somewhere you know it will be used. Even in personal life that might be a good idea. Dropping an empty box of pasta or dental floss on the ground also serves as a convenient reminder, but it's harder to do with a can of tuna.
Re: Milk Kanban
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree. I dig the idea, really cool, but quoting the article: > it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then If freaking glancing into the shelf once a day (or more like once a week, because this milk has months of shelf life) in scope of full time office manager job is "a pain", maybe that office manager should rethink their employment there.
Or maybe if putting a piece of paper on someone's desk for precise restocking is too much of "a pain" to the person who drank the milk, then they should rethink their employment there.
I'm interrupted in the office a hundred times a day.
It is guaranteed to happen that as I grab the paper and walk to the person's desk, something more important comes up as somebody sees me, and then I have a meeting, and the piece of paper simply isn't important enough to remember next to my other responsibilities.
Employees are paid to do the work they're best at. It's a bad use of resources to have them tracking office supplies, emptying their wastebins, vacuuming their floor area, restocking toilet paper, or alerting the office manager when milk is low.
For a tiny, cash-strapped startup they might have to do all those things, but generally it's not optimal.
Edit: just to be clear and in response to downvotes, this isn't an ego or self-importance thing. It's just the fact that when in conflict, it is genuinely more important for the company for me to address an urgent technical issue, and show up to an important meeting on time, than to finish running across the office to drop off a post-it note about milk. I already never have enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to get done for my job, and everything is a question of prioritization. I'm just trying to give a realistic perspective here, that we separate out job responsibilities for a good reason.
Re: Milk Kanban
#24Re: Milk Kanban
#25Re: Milk Kanban
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe if putting a piece of paper on someone's desk for precise restocking is too much of "a pain" to the person who drank the milk, then they should rethink their employment there.
I'm interrupted in the office a hundred times a day. It is guaranteed to happen that as I grab the paper and walk to the person's desk, something more important comes up as somebody sees me, and then I have a meeting, and the piece of paper simply isn't important enough to remember next to my other responsibilities. Employees are paid to do the work they're best at. It's a bad use of resources to have them tracking o…
We outsourced all of those things. The office managers are gone.
There's no milk.
Also, anecdotally, my dad worked at a place where, if you needed something to be plugged into an electrical outlet, there was a person whose job was do do that. And if that person needed tools, there was another person whose job was to carry his tools.
Re: Milk Kanban
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe if putting a piece of paper on someone's desk for precise restocking is too much of "a pain" to the person who drank the milk, then they should rethink their employment there.
I'm interrupted in the office a hundred times a day. It is guaranteed to happen that as I grab the paper and walk to the person's desk, something more important comes up as somebody sees me, and then I have a meeting, and the piece of paper simply isn't important enough to remember next to my other responsibilities. Employees are paid to do the work they're best at. It's a bad use of resources to have them tracking o…
To each their own, but wow. In healthy environments people are paid to do what makes the team most effective.
Re: Milk Kanban
#28Cigarette rolling paper comes in a flat pack, from which you take the papers one by one, like a box of Kleenex. Towards the bottom of the pack, there's gonna be an odd-colored piece of paper, after which there still gonna be 10 pieces left in the box. The odd-colored paper tells you that it's time to buy a new pack, but you still have 10 cigarettes' worth. Edit: found a photo of this phenomenon on r/antiassholedesign…
The practice of having a slip that read “Five leaves left” was where Nick Drake got the title for his first album (somewhat eerily recorded five years before his death).
Re: Milk Kanban
#29> In its original meaning, Kanban represented a visual signal. The thing that communicated, well, something. It might have been a need, option, availability, capacity, request, etc. > the system is self-explanatory I've always known of this as an "affordance" - An available & apparent interaction between an object and its user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things
There is definitely a connection there, but affordance is a concept specific to interaction design and something having a physically self-evident purpose (handles, buttons, levers, knobs, etc).
Re: Milk Kanban
#30> The tricky part is that when you don’t drink milk yourself, it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then to ensure we’re stocked. If checking the milk reserves once a day is too much of a pain for a person hired as an office manager, the person should self-reflect on his/her choice to take the job.
What if there are eight floors with two pantries each, four types of milk, five other drinks, plus seven different snacks that need replacing. They'd spend the entire day peeking at fridges and cupboards.
This is why in places like I just described, you often have a shortage of particular items; the checks happen only every so often and usually by multiple cleaning employees. On the other hand, it's also exactly why Kanban came to existence, to solve a very similar problem in manufacturing.
This particular example feels weird because your job is not to drink milk, but in theory it should work and allow you to have just-in-time replenished stock for everything.