Imagine an executive walking into virgin territory: A fresh, partial build-out on the twenty-fourth floor downtown. The elevator door opens, revealing the bare space in the southwest corner. The executive, who happens to have no imagination at all, walks over to one of the floor to ceiling windows and takes a cursory look. He nods in apparent satisfaction and retraces his steps to the elevator, without giving a moment’s thought to the office decor, office furniture or a single office chair.
Now imagine the same scenario with one of the office assistants. This assistant, armed with a bagged lunch, sketchbook and camping chair, settles in for an hour to create a pleasing design. As our assistant nibbles on Jarlsburg and a fresh baguette, a masterpiece of design appears on the open page. A wall here; a half-wall there – only where the executive offices would be located with their fine office furniture and executive chairs. Cubicles would fill the middle of the area, filled with office furniture in gray laminate and office chairs in plum cloth. Only the executive chairs would be in leather. The reception area would contain plush office chairs in a plum print. Up against a wall, in view of the elevator, the office furniture for the receptionist would reflect the firm’s class. The assistant sketched in a frenzy. A desk as dark as mahogany; an executive chair in black leather. The assistant’s cell phone beeps. Lunch is over.
The Candy company’s new building was scheduled to open in just one week’s time. They had hired an interior design firm to furnish the new building as the Candy company knew nothing of design. The only request the Candy company made was that every employee must have an ergonomic chair to sit in. The interior design firm had contracted a locale furniture maker to produce a series of desk chairs for the Candy company’s new building nearly four months prior to the opening date. With only one week to go the phones at the interior design firm were ringing nonstop. At 4pm on the previous day the furniture maker had called and informed the firm that he was no longer able to fulfill their order. Tempers flared and the CEO of the interior design firm threatened legal action against the furniture maker as he leaned back in his leather office chair. The furniture maker simply hung up and disappeared. No one at the firm was able to reach him and the CEO even sent men to find him but to no avail. Since that phone call the office had been working nonstop day and night to find a new supplier of desk chairs for the Candy company’s new office. If only they hadn’t requested every employee to have an ergonomic chair the interior design firm would have had a much easy time. But since they needed such a large quantity of desk chairs that had to fulfill the Candy company’s requirements they were now in a panic. The CEO of the interior design firm sat calmly in his leather office chair discussing with his managers how best to handle the situation. The leather office chair squeaked as the CEO leaned back once more listening intently to his managers discuss the issue. The new building require nearly four hundred desk chairs meaning that if every employee had to have an ergonomic chair they were need four hundred ergonomic chairs to fill the order. As the tension grew one of the interns a smart young man with dark hair barged his way into the office knowing full well it may get him fired. The CEO looked the young man over wondering if he was a fool or incredibly brave. Several of the managers yelled at the young man to get out but he didn’t budge. Raising his hand to quite the managers the young man spoke calmly staring directly at the CEO. With a clear voice and enormous confidence the young man informed them that he knew how they could fill the order. The CEO smiled a bit and listen to the young man speak.
