It's a shame that some comments in the original post are so toxic and unwelcoming. There are plenty of empathetic people on HN. Well HN is welcome if at least when the topic isn't website standards or a page failing to load in some commenter obscure browser.
Milk Kanban
31–40 of 173 posts
Re: Milk Kanban
#32Cigarette 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…
One of the episodes of The Simpsons I saw as a kid that had a surprisingly large impact on how I think was where Willie had cameras in all of the bathrooms to monitor if they needed the toilet roll changed: “That roll of towels is nearin' its end! She's on double red stripe!”
Re: Milk Kanban
#33> 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…
Typically you combine that with other householding tasks. If you don't visit the kitchen or pantry daily as an office manager, you're doing something wrong. And walking through 8 floors with 2 pantries doesn't take that long either. I don't really think expanding o. The example makes a better case for the article...
Re: Milk Kanban
#34In other words, issue tracker todo/doing/done lists have nothing to do with kanban.
They do if your "doing" list has a line on it that prohibits/allows more tasks to start
Re: Milk Kanban
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But that's what I'm saying. An office manager makes a team most effective. A team that has to track a bunch of office maintenance tasks makes them less effective. Their team priorities should be top.
Re: Milk Kanban
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
To each their own, but wow. In healthy environments people are paid to do what makes the team most effective.
But that's what I'm saying. An office manager makes a team most effective. A team that has to track a bunch of office maintenance tasks makes them less effective. Their team priorities should be top.
Don’t have to track it. Just have to put the slip on their desk.
Re: Milk Kanban
#37> When people say Kanban, they tend to think of a specific set of practices. Whiteboards & sticky notes (both almost universally virtual).
When software developers say Kanban, they tend to think of whiteboards. For anyone who works in manufacturing they would have thought about replenishment first. It is completely ubiquitous anywhere where taking something from a location signals a need for replenishment.These days it is often virtually, where an ERP sees an order taking something below some level, triggering purchase or manufacture of a replacement.
I understand the literal translation of Kanban is 'coloured badge' btw
Re: Milk Kanban
#38Earlier 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…
Finish the one before you start the next.
As long as you’re holding the slip of paper in your hand, you won’t forget about it.
Re: Milk Kanban
#39Earlier 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…
When I was in the army we had a simple system to determine who fell asleep on guard duty during training exercises[0], who was in possession of the squad leader's watch when everyone woke up.
Nobody really took guard duty seriously when it was just the platoon spending the night in the woods and between the three squads plus 'radio watch' there was always bound to be someone awake the penalty for falling asleep was usually just being assigned to the next shit detail so this system worked quite well.
I suspect this system is quite similar, if you want milk and the sticky note is on someone's desk because they can't be bothered to walk it over to correct person's desk because they are 'too important' then maybe people will start to question that person's true importance to the organization.
[0] during our time in Saudi Arabia/Iraq everyone took guard duty seriously and the leaders would make sure people were doing their jobs up to and including punishing people for petty infractions.
Re: Milk Kanban
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
When I was in the army we had a simple system to determine who fell asleep on guard duty during training exercises[0], who was in possession of the squad leader's watch when everyone woke up. Nobody really took guard duty seriously when it was just the platoon spending the night in the woods and between the three squads plus 'radio watch' there was always bound to be someone awake the penalty for falling asleep was u…
That's not a relevant analogy. In your example, staying awake during guard duty is your job and it's a proper responsibility. You should be penalized if you fail at your job.
I'm saying that tracking milk shouldn't be part of your job, because it's not a good use of people's time. None of it has anything to do with "importance". It's about what is best for the business.