Analogy of the Foundation WorkersLibrary technical service personnel are like construction workers who prepare and repair foundations in a housing project. The sites where construction is to be done have already been chosen, and some sites require different approaches than other sites. The plan for each site has already been prepared by the architect and leaders of the construction firm. Subcontracts have been signed with companies which will do portions of the work. Construction materials have been bought. Tools have been provided and better tools are bought when the construction firm can buy them. Workers are assigned for each site. At one particular site was a house which was being enlarged. It was neither a very new or very old house. In years past it had been adequate enough for the people who lived in it. Now, however, the foundation of some of the older rooms was crumbling and the house needed to be modernized. New rooms needed to be added. Once they were added they would be used as some of the older rooms had been used. One reason why this work was being done was that the people who lived in the house saw the need. Another reason was that a committee of building inspectors had been there and pointed out the inadequate features of the structure. They said that the house was not up to the standard of other houses in the project. They also noted that improvements to the house were not as far along as they were for other comparable houses in the project, and they said that more workers had to be hired for that site. The construction firm in response to this did hire more workers and attempts were made to hire others. New workers were assigned as backup to workers already at the site. Subcontractors brought in concrete for rooms. Foundation workers at the site were adding more cement where needed and they were smoothing the surface of newly poured foundation. They were also doing preliminary work for other rooms where concrete had not yet been poured. A survey was done to determine the extent of additional foundation work not yet completed, and this was discussed with coworkers. Yet even the foundation workers themselves did not understand the full extent of all that needed to be done. Most of this analogy is from my annual report for 1997.
Milton G. Clasen |