During a lecture on economics the professor, while explaining the value of efficiency, stopped and moved to the other side of his desk to get closer to his students."Also", he said, "an important lesson to remember about the value of efficiency is this..." He sits on his desk, "Every morning my wife and I would enjoy breakfast together. I noticed that as she made breakfast she would place some slices of bread under the grill, then make the coffee, mine black with three sugars and hers how she preferred it. She would then check the progress of the bread she was toasting under the grill.
Next, she would pull a pan from the cupboard and give it a quick spritz of oil, not too much and not too little. She would take the toast off the grill, take two plates and rest the toast on them, with a very light spread of butter. As I sipped my coffee and glanced over the front page of the newspaper she had already taken a few eggs from the refrigerator and broken them into the heated pan on the cooker. Quite energetically she scrambled the eggs, with just a careful sprinkle of salt. Once done it was just a matter of placing the scrambled eggs onto the lightly buttered toast.
We enjoyed our breakfast together. With those moments we were at the breakfast table together, I suggested that if she fist made the coffee, then took out all the kitchen utensils needed to make breakfast, and made the scrambled eggs at the same time the bread was toasting, along with a couple more refinements in her process, she could shorten the whole process by a good seven minutes at least.
The professor then stood up and returned to his notes and told the students that they were going to examine 'Globalization'. As he began, a student raised his hand and asked, " Sir, the story you told us about your wife making breakfast and efficiency, what was the important 'lesson'? The professor turned to the students, "Oh, yes, the lesson... well, now I have to make my own breakfast".