From 5dbd9ac1247eed7f2d4ea9da7ef640f7417d1125 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: counterweight <counterweightoperator@protonmail.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:42:23 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] 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>
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