Mrs. M, Michael (a friend who’s in town for a couple weeks) and myself went to the local Renaissance festival. For those of you who have never went to one of these, it’s analogous to Star Trek Conventions for those who like Medieval times but think of those times as a combination of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, any King Arthur story written in the 70s and 80s and most Disney Fairy Tales. Lots of jokes about wenches and dungeons can be had by all.
But, they’re fun. You get a chance to eat large turkey legs right from the bone, funnel cakes and drink root beer.
The obligatory joust was good, but by far the best parts of the day came from the comedians (either paid or nature). The first guy who was in the tomato throwing booth could wing an insult - “hey kid, maybe your real Dad can throw better” or “wow, with your face it might be better just to hit yourself with the tomatoes.” We almost just stood there most of the day but moved on afraid his insults would turn too us.
The second comedian was good and damn smart. Christophe the Insultor’s show was pretty simple. People in the audience would pick someone they wanted insulted and they pay money to have them insulted. Back of the envelop calculations show Christophe must have made around 500 to $750 bucks for his 45 minute show. Not bad money.
His favorite line was, “okay folks the next one is pretty deep - smart people, help the dumb people.” The phrase became a mantra for the rest of the day, and in fact, became a nice framework for me thinking about different problems in society that I and Mrs. M faced during the weekend.
Let’s take our weekly trip to Wal-Mart. Most times it’s to the local “Community” Wal-Mart (read: a smaller store that Wal-Mart had to fight local ordinances to put in, so it’s smaller and less chaotic), which is nice. But thanks to the need to buy cheap gardening equipment we went to the ubber large facility a couple miles away.
I like 75% of the Wal-Mart experience.
I like finding the items because the layouts are pretty similar.
I like the prices since I’m not a supplier nor a competitor.
I loath the checkout process. Skip ahead when you’ve heard this before - too few lines, checkers are slow and the people in line are dim.
The last part is where the Smart people, help the dumb ones framework comes into play. Mrs. M and I bought 4 things, which entitled us to use the 10 items or less line. This line should have been quickest but the dumb shit fella in front of us and his 30 items slowed the entire process down.
This problem brought forward an idea. Lines shouldn’t be regulated by amount of items, but by IQ, EQ or CS Q (Common sense Q - we all know ‘intelligent’ people who are a bit dim). The smart people, who are judged by their decisions and abilities check out in area while the dim folks check out in another. This allows for quicker check outs for those who can do it and for those listening to their Ipods, while talking on the phone, while … can check out at their leisure.
Under the frame, at times smart people would volunteer time to help those to dim to know better. Maybe a designer could build a buggy/trolley (the new international version of my blog uses all the words in the dictionary) that has 10 little compartments (or 20 for 20 or less). Then we will explain that once the little compartments are full (with something) then they can’t go in that line or they should go directly to check out.
Smart people, help the dumb people a new framework for business operations. I may have my first book.
Well it’s time to go back to studying and preparing my costume for next weekend. It’s Village Idiot day at the Renaissance Festival and I’m gearing up for a good afternoon. What I’m not certain of is if I’m in the idiots line or one of the volunteers helping with crowd control.
