Absolute Minimum - Explained

Pierre Dolet writes . . .

As I have Noted to The Cube a few times, our company has had a fairly recent change of executive management, followed by 5S and Lean Manufacturing programs, and so on. (Actually, the Lean Manufacturing has sort of been forgotten mid-way through, but it may rear its head again: you never know.)

Having pitched out most of my paper trails during the 5S era (it's been mostly forgotten, too, except for the fading posters and occasional visits from a "5S Review Team" that seems to change composition every time it comes around - we ignore their memos, nothing happens, and life goes on), I was surprised to come across my little top-bound steno notebook from the time when our new President first arrived. I love those little top-bound steno notebooks: reminds me of grade school without the bulkiness of a 3-ring binder to go with it. Oh, we have 3-ring binders here, too, but I have so far avoided them. My last one was in high school, held together with plastic tape to get it through the entire school term because it was bulging like a pregnant pause by year's end. Here they use them to file reports in, label them, put them on shelves and let them look impressively pristine and unread - until the 5S slaughter hacked them into red-tagged debris. Oddly enough, we never needed them until they were gone.

My stenopad had one page almost entirely filled with this one note:

President's style:

ABSOLUTE MINIMUM

Waaay down on the bottom of the page I had scrawled in little letters:

What does that mean?

Flash forward two years later ---

* Wholesale slaughter of the VP and upper management ranks (replaced by friends from his old company on a "Fire 3 Old - Get 1 New" basis)
* Close down of an entire factory in the Midwest (moved to Mexico for a "25 cents on the dollar" hiring standard)
* Layoffs of in-house line workers by 20% (because, well, we have to protect the annual Executive Bonus Plan in order to attract Talent, don't you know)

--- and I think I understand what he meant now.