RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31144, 22 August 1966, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

EFFICIENCY

There was a hint of American super - efficient business methods in the buzz of activity in Papanui where a number of houses was under construction. It was, of course, difficult to tell at a glance to what stage construction - had been advanced: from the outside, the chaos —mud and timber and equipment —seemed fairly general. So one of (he prospective owners was not only surprised, but distinctly elated, to have a telephone call one evening from a furnishing company to tell him that the carpets had been laid in his new house. Second thoughts prompt-

ed investigation. But the man had been right The carpets were down in his house. The only unsatisfactory discovery was that they were not the carpets he had ordered. But there they were, rubber backing and all. Further inquiries elicited the information that the telephone call had come from a furnishing firm which was not the one he had been dealing with, and that this other firm had taken its carpets and crew to the area, had thought his house must be the one they wanted because it seemed nearer to completion than the others, and had promptly got to work.

Next morning, by happy chance, the client ran into the manager of the firm with which he had placed his order for floor coverings and he could not resist the temptation to mention, casually, that he had his carpets down. The reaction was immediate, and splendid. The discomfiture of the man parallelled that of the old Kokatahi band on the West Coast where, it was alleged. one of the individual instrumentalists asked his neighbour what they were going to play next On being told it was “Mocking Bird Hill" he was horrified. “I played that last time,” he said.