02/11/06

毎週土曜日の朝一番に洗濯をする。

僕は洗濯を単なる家事とは思っていない。これは生きるか死ぬかの真剣勝負だ。

即ち、「しっかりと動く」乾燥機をめぐっての勝負である。

乾燥機はたくさんあるが、大きくてしっかりと乾燥するのは大学に３つしかない。

キャンパスの寮に住んでいる学生は約１０００人なので、

なんと０．３％しか良い乾燥機をゲットできないのである。

さて、この真剣勝負の結果は二つの要因によって決まる。

即ち、洗濯をする「曜日」と「時間」だ。

様々なフィールド・スタディーを行った結果、

「土曜日の朝」が一番乾燥機にありつけるチャンスが大きいということが分かった。

この発見の背景にはかなり複雑な理論が絡まっているが、

一言で言えば、「土曜日の朝、大抵の学生は二日酔いで苦しんでいる」ためだ。

これらのリサーチをもとに、僕が練り上げた戦略は

１．土曜日８時に洗濯機を回し

２．８時３６分に乾燥機を回す

聊か複雑な戦略である故、その実行性が疑問視されるかもしれないが、

僕はこの戦略で今まで一度も負けたことが無い！

僕がどれだけ洗濯に力を入れているかご理解できましたでしょうか。


Saturday

The first thing I do every Saturday morning is cleaning my clothes, which is sometimes called by the anglo-saxons "washings".

I don't regard washing just as a chore, but I look at it as a "battle", which gives me an interesting insights into the human psychology and its behaviour.

Namely, it's a battle over the use of drying machine.

There are only three properly functioning drying machines in the university and

approximately 1000 students live on campus, so you can imagine how fierce this battle is,

i.e. only 0.3% of the student population can have access to the properly functioning drying machines.

There are two important factors that determine the outcome of this battle.

First one is the day you do your washing, and the second is the time.

Based on my empirical studies, which involved observation and the use of "learning-effect",

I came to a conclusion that "Saturday morning" is the best time.

The theories behind this conclusion are rather complicated; it involved an extensive empirical research such as

carrying out questionnairs, regression analysis, Porter's five forces and Einsteins's theory of relativity.

To summarise my findings, I learnt that "students are suffering from malicious hangover on Saturday mornings" (Smith M, 2005, P45).

Based on these findings, I formed a strategy that lets you win this battle:

-start washing on Saturday at 8am

-start drying from 8:36

Due to the complexity of this strategy, its usefulness could be questioned,

however, using this strategy, I have actually never lost this battle.

I hope you could understand how important I regard washing.

And don't tell anyone about this strategy, because if you do, it's not goint to work (this is its weakness).

References: Smith, M (2005), Strategic Management 9th ed, Oxford, Smith Publishings


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