David McCoy

Got another 10 percent "senior discount" tonight…  man, I hate that.  I’m nowhere near senior status.  That doesn’t stop the clerks though.  They take one look at me and press the button that screams out, "poor old dear… he needs to save 10 percent on these fish sticks."  I never see them do it; I just see it on my receipt as I’m walking away from the checkout counter.  I’m getting so depressed with this that I may start buying my fish sticks on Amazon.com.  At least they won’t randomly assign me an aging potion disguised as a 10 percent discount.

Are there Business Process Management (BPM) lessons here?  Sure there are. 

Lesson 1 – Rules are made to be broken. 

Senior citizen discounts apply to… Senior Citizens.  Yes! You passed that one.  The rule is simple:  IF AGE >= SENIOR CITIZEN AGE THEN DISCOUNT = .10, ELSE DISCOUNT = 0.  So why is this rule broken all the time?  I answered that question in this post.  People are capricious.  They break rules because: (a) they don’t know the rules, (b) they don’t care about the rules or (c) they don’t know how to apply the rules in a practical setting with real data.To be successful, Business Rule Management (BRM) must be a holistic, human-focused effort and it must expect resistance.  See why?

Lesson 2 – Processes are for other people. 

No one likes to follow the process.  We want to haggle for our cars.  We want to weasel a first-class upgrade from the ticket agent.  We want special treatment at the spa.  And when we are running checkout counters, we sometimes want to give special treatment to others… especially to that dear, dear man who keeps coming in here and mumbling about Amazon.com and rules.  Breaking the rules and bending the process – that’s the American way!  And look how well – how very well – it has worked for us…

Lesson 3 – Life is unfair.

This last one is not a BPM lesson… or is it?  Yeah, it is.  Get used to it David.  You’re going to get the random senior citizen discount.  Don’t be depressed and certainly don’t expect things to run like clockwork.  That’s not your Weltanschauung.  You already established that, back in the previous post, right before you started writing about yourself in the second-person.

So, I’ll live with my curse… to be aged before one’s time.  By the way, have you guys checked out the really cool Bermuda plaid shorts over at George Dean’s in Athens?  Wouldn’t those look keen out on the shuffleboard deck… right after a nice, long nap… and some fresh fish sticks?