Often in the U.S. we hear the refrain of how the private sector always does things better, etc. While for many things that might be true, there are a number of things that businesses do that are just incredibly stupid. I thought it might be fun to highlight a few of my pet peeves that annoy me not just because they waste my time, but they cost the business money as well.

1. McDonalds' style worker inefficiency. How is that in years I've never seen fewer than 12 employees "working" in any McDonalds at a given time, yet they have trouble waiting on anyone? I worked fast food in high school, but unlike McDonalds the owner/operators of the places I worked actually got their money's worth from employees. We had rather simple systems designed to handle the same volume with 1/3rd as many workers. It ain't rocket science folks...

2. $50 limit on credit card gas purchases. For some reason, some gas stations have a $50 limit on gas purchases with a credit card. This is a serious PITA when one is trying to fill up. As a result, I never return to a station that has such a limit. Since when did it make good business sense to limit how much money your customers can spend with you??? Better yet, simultaneously inconvenience and annoy them. And when you try to ask why this is happening, the credit card company points to the station, while the station points to the card issuer. Sheesh... With gas running $3 gallon it is not hard to reach the limit. So if it was some sort of "protection" you would have thought they would boost it to at least $75 or $100.

3. Cable/Phone or other service providers' lethargy in hooking up customers. Ok, what is so hard about hooking someone up with new service promptly? You are going to be hooking them up eventually, why not ASAP? I would shoot for 24 hour turnaround. Why? Because you give up revenue unnecessarily by waiting--money you never recover, you irritate the customer, and you run the risk that they might be tempted by a competing service in the interim. (The worst locale in my experience for this: any service in Houston, Texas. They brought inefficient service to a whole new standard, unlike anywhere else I've lived.)

4. Not cashing the check. Had a health insurance provider in Houston that threatened to cancel for non-payment on our policies. After some head scratching and digging we learned that they had received the checks, but had not deposited or credited them. Their solution? Give them a credit card payment immediately! My answer: go **** themselves, and when they are done, simply deposit the money they already acknowledged they were holding. They eventually saw it my way. Isn't it a bad idea to hold onto checks without depositing them? Interest...and assurance of payment for service, etc. If you have a business where you can't find the time to deposit checks should you really be in business in the first place?

5. Carrying 40,000 varieties of the same product, but not stocking enough of the original. So you go to buy some crackers or shampoo or whatever. When you get to the spot you see rows of the stuff, but there is a catch...none of them are the plain vanilla flagship type you've been buying for decades. No, they have the low fat, low sodium, no sugar, low sugar, sour cream, nacho, decaffeinated, chunky, etc. but there is a gap where a tiny row of everyone's favorite original should be. And there are several folks poking around all trying to find that last hidden box. Yes, there can be too much variety in the world. The store and maker just lost several sales.

...more later...enjoy!