Shouldn’t Strip That Down To Basics

I work at a bookstore. Our managers have the bad habit of making up stupid little rules to be more efficient. One ‘rule’ is the demand that we abbreviate our requests over the PA system. However, they clearly didn’t think it through…

Originally an announcement was: “Supervisor and/or Manager to loading bay for strip cleaning.”

“Strip cleaning” meant they gathered up all the hoarded garbage, boxes, and pallets from a shipment to take out all at once.

However, the abbreviated version was…

Over PA System: “S & M to strip, please. S & M to strip!”

This was done in a store full of customers… The abbreviation rule was immediately dropped and never spoken of again.