When I worked in Hong Kong, I travelled across the border into Shenzhen once a week to meet with my factory management team. We'd gather in the conference room to talk about our telephone production - numbers, quality, new products, stock control, line efficiency. Then at 12.30pm lunch would arrive. Lunch was McDonald's - a driver was dispatched at 10.30am to pick up the order, which was then reheated in the kitchen's oven. By the time we got our hands on our burgers we might just as well have eaten the boxes they came in - revolting!
It struck me that we had a perfectly functioning kitchen and restaurant in the factory.
Then one Saturday afternoon my PA called to say there had been an outbreak of food poisoning in the factory. And 2,500 factory workers had been taken to hospital - most had been immediately released, but almost 500 were staying in overnight as a precaution. "But it's all OK", she said, "the press don't know". I went first to the hospital and then to the factory. Turns out there was some dodgy fish. When I say dodgy, I mean rank, rotten, stink to high heaven type of dodgy fish.
Every factory worker was OK with no long term side effects.
The factory workers signed a petition complaining about the food quality. I tasted the food and signed it too. And so it improved a bit.
Thereafter, at every subsequent factory meeting we ate what the factory workers ate, and we changed our meeting day each week to discourage 'best food on Thursdays' syndrome. It took a while but after some weeks the fish began to look like they'd lived and swam around.
If things look funny and smell funny, then they're probably funny. Don't sit on a pedestal. Treat yourself in exactly the same way you treat others.
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