I was sitting at a local Starbucks getting some work done. When I went to pick up my drink, something struck me in what I saw.

Do you see it?

There are two queues ostensibly for mobile pick up. They are separated by the starting letter of the customer’s name. So far so good.

Here is the problem – one has A-F and the other G-Z. That does not sound like a balanced queue load – unless Americans are overwhelming these days naming themselves in an alphabetically skewed fashion.

“Jason!”, I called out to the friendly gentleman who always helps me with my tea.
“Yes, Roy”.
“Come here. I have a question”.
Nobody was there in the store at that time. Jason came over and surveyed what I pointed at…

“Do you see the problem?”
“What problem?”
“Why do we have 6 letters in one queue and 20 in the other?”

Jason was truly flummoxed! He counted from A to F, looked at me, looked at the cards again and shook his head – “I have no idea. I just printed out the corporate templates!”.

Ah! The corporate templates! Bane of all our intelligence!!

Anyways, we had a great laugh together and I got a free cup of tea!!