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the roi of toilets

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<h2 id="writings-header">Writings</h2>
<p>Sometimes I like to jot down ideas and drop them here.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="writings/the-roi-of-toilets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The ROI of
toilets</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="writings/your-customers-dont-care-that-your-bathroom-is-dirty.html" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">Your customers don't care that your bathroom is dirty</a>

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<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Pablo here</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta viewport="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<main>
<h1>
Hi, Pablo here
</h1>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
<hr>
<section>
<h2>The ROI of toilets</h2>
<p>Years ago I worked under the organizational umbrella of this COO. He was my boss' boss. Sometimes we
bumped into each other for big meetings and presentations.</p>
<p>The COO had a background in finance and audit, which gave him certain management quirks that coupled in
rather funny ways with the nature of our data and analytics departments. There was this specific one
that was always itchy to me. At the time I was still a very junior and inexperienced professional, and
my default stance on things was to humble out, shut the fuck up and listen. But I always had my opinions
locked in my brain, and in cases like this one, I couldn't hold them back.</p>
<p>
The quirk this gentleman had was to try to measure the ROI of every little thing. He would ask for the
ROI of projects, the ROI of developments, the ROI of acquiring licenses, the ROI of going out for a
smoke. It was an understandable quirk for a financier who had never actually built or serviced anything,
but rather always looked, judged and measured from the outside. He wasn't that interested in the things
themselves, but rather in measuring them in units that would fit in his Excel sheets.
</p>
<p>
I generally thought (and still think) that assessing ROI is a good thing to aim for. But intuitively, I
found his obsession with it misplaced and counterproductive. I now have much better words to critique
and argue against his stance, but at the time I lacked those and only had a gut feeling of "this is
stupid".
</p>
<p>
One day we were in one of those meetings where he would start asking about the ROI of something while I
thought to myself: "We just need this thing and it's obviously more valuable that the money it will
cost, why are we having this conversation uuuugh". As I spiritually (not physically) rolled my eyes, I
couldn't hold it in anymore and just shot: "What's the ROI of the office toilets?"
</p>
<p>
The COO and my boss suddenly stared at me, mouths open, eyebrows pressed down as they squinted their
eyes: "What?"
</p>
<p>
"We have toilets. We have to pay for them. We could use them for desk space, but instead we put toilets.
Then we have to do plumbing and stuff. We need to pay people to clean them. it's a nuisance. How can we
know that they are the best use of shareholder funds? Who has measured the ROI of those toilets?". It
all came out naturally out of the blue. I had a great relationship with these people, but I still was
clenching my but, wondering if I had gone a bit too hard. Oh how nice it is to be young.
</p>
<p>
They chuckled and got my point. The COO stopped insisting on specific figures for the cost
element we had at hand, although he didn't surrender a good old "write a business case for this so we
can refer to it later", which probably was a wise thing to do.
</p>
<p>
I've faced similar situations a few times since then, and I've found myself in many others where it was
up to me if and how precisely should the ROI of something be measured. I now have a much clear mental
model and opinion of when it should and shouldn't be done. But that's for another day.
</p>
<p>
Nobody ever told me what was the ROI of the toilets, though. Perhaps we should remove them?
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="../index.html">back to home</a></p>
</section>
</main>
</body>
</html>