When DIY is a Don't

Is Doing It Yourself really the way to go when putting together an office lunch? Sometimes. When it goes well, it can save you some money if you're willing to sacrifice some time. When it doesn't go so well, it can hurt more than it helps. Let's look at a scenario recently related to me by a customer who decided to try the DIY thing. The names have been changed to protect the embarrassed:

(The Scene: Thursday afternoon, in a typical office in a large downtown building. The characters: A Boss; Stefan, the Administrative Assistant; and Emily, the Receptionist.)
Boss: We need lunch brought in for 25 on Tuesday. Can you take care of that?
Stefan: Sure. I'm on it.

Then Stefan thinks to himself, 'Hey, I love throwing dinner parties! Surely I can take care of this lunch. I'll save the company some money, and maybe I'll get some sorta kickback...' So Stefan asks Emily whether she wants to help him plan this party. They sit down, Emily volunteers to take care of getting a dessert taken care of, and she'll do all the set up and clean up if Stefan will man the phones for her while that happens. Stefan decides to make his grandmother's famous Italian pasta salad, and he'll get the stuff for people to make their own sandwiches. Then they talk about what's happening on Entourage.

Over the weekend, Emily comes down with a bad case of Strep throat. Monday morning, Stefan finds out that he's going to have to go it alone AND also handle both his regular job duties AND answer the phones. So Monday night, after a long day at the office, Stefan runs to Costco to pick up the stuff for sandwiches. Then he runs to a neighborhood store to pick up stuff for pasta salad. He goes home, starts the pasta salad and realizes he's forgotten to triple the recipe. He has a manic evening in which he totally misses Entourage with all the running around, and goes into work with a pasta salad which is not exactly the perfect medley his grandmother had in mind (he bought the neighborhood store out of basil, and still didn't have enough).

Since it's also the beginning of the month, Stefan's got to coordinate reports, and answer the phone, and 11am comes around like it always does, and he realizes with a shock that it's time to set up the meeting room. He's forgotten to buy plates, and since he hates mayonnaise, he forgot that too, but the breads and meats and cheeses are all there. The attendees will have to make do with mustard and tiny plates that say "happy birthday" or have pictures of snow and holly. Everything gets set up, and he goes, exhausted, back to Emily's reception desk. He realizes with a start that he's forgotten the dessert too! He has an assistant manager cover the phones, runs to the convenience store in the lobby, and buys an overpriced bag of mixed candy to substitute.

Sure, DIY (do-it-yourself) sounds like a great idea - you save some money, get out of the office for a while, maybe showcase your favorite recipes - but is it really? Unless your office has extra staff who are paid specifically to run errands like this one, it's almost always going to hurt your bottom-line. Missed time for employees, who then may have to stay late and get overtime to make up the work they didn't do. Clients who think you're too cheap to do it right.

If Stefan had thought to himself, 'Gee, lunch for 25. Sounds like I should call a caterer,' his reports could have been done on time, the meeting attendees would have been wowed with custom-created dishes, and his boss would have said, 'Good job, Stefan. Maybe we'll finally get you that keyboard tray you've been asking for.'