The Bad Butcher

I went to the bank the other day to conduct a few transactions. First, I wanted to exchange a hundred-dollar bill I’d been given for tens. Hundreds are always problematic for me. I hardly ever spend anywhere near that amount in any store. Handing over that excess usually draws sour looks from the check-out clerk. Since I’m not buying much more than a coffee and some bananas, a hundred-dollar bill creates a huge drain on a clerk’s change drawer. What’s more, a bill of that size has to be carefully inspected and validated as a non-forgery before a clerk can accept it. All-in-all, hundred-dollar bills are nuisances.

So I handed over my bill to the bank teller and she quickly pushed a small stack of ten-dollar bills back at me. Just as I was reaching for this more negotiable supply of money, the teller barked out, “Wait! Wait a minute. Hand those back. I think I gave you too much.”

Reluctantly, I pushed my apparent bonanza back under the plastic shield and dismally watched her re-count. Yes, she found she had given me one too many ten-dollar bills. She stashed the extra bill back in her tray and this time carefully counted out one…two…three……ten - and only ten - bills back to me.  I accepted the new stack and contemplated my reduced circumstances as the teller went on to complete other items of business for me.

I wondered if I should tell her the tale. It was a rainy day and no other customers seemed likely to have urgent business in the walk-in bank cubicle at that moment. It seemed I’d have time. So I launched into the “Parable of the Two Butchers.”

I told the teller that our corrected exchange had reminded me of a story. There were two butchers both doing business on the same street in a town. Both store owners were friendly, knowledgeable professionals. They both sold reliably tender, tasty, high-quality meat. They both kept their stores immaculately clean. They both sold their products at comparable prices and both ran frequent, advertised sales.

Yet one butcher almost always did overflow business, while the other butcher’s shop usually just had a trickle of customers. What could possibly account for the difference? The butcher with the failing business hired an outside consultant to see if he could find the reason for his poor patronage.

The consultant sent in an anonymous shopper who spent considerable time shopping at both places on successive days. She bought chops from one place, then the other. The next day it was ribs, then the rarer oxtails, then ground beef, and so forth. Finally, the consultant thought she had solved the mystery.

The butcher doing poor business would almost always respond to a customer’s order by piling a randomly large amount of meat on his scale in front of the customer. Then he’d take off, take off, take off meat - until the scale registered the amount the customer wanted.

By contrast, the successful butcher would always initially put too little meat on the scale in front of the customer. Then he would add more, add more, add more - until the pile of ground beef (or whatever) came up to the weight the customer had specified.

And there you have it. Customers of both stores ultimately came away with their requested weight of quality meat. And yet the customers of the successful store always felt as if the butcher was being more generous with them – adding, adding. “Oh, that’s not enough. Let me go in the back and get you some more.”

It’s a subtle psychological trick our minds play on all of us. Once some meat is put on the scale, we feel it’s ours. The butcher who adds, adds – is granting us more and more. But what about that other butcher? Again, we feel that once the meat has been put on the scale, it’s ours. But here he’s taking away, taking away. Our portion is being whittled down by a calculating stinginess.

Once the habitually subtracting butcher learned this, he changed his ways, and his business soon picked up until he was competitive with the butcher down the street.

The bank teller had caught my point. As she handed over my receipt, she smiled across at me. “So I am the bad butcher?” she ventured.

“Yes, you are the bad butcher,” I humorously confirmed.

We bonded a moment over our newly shared secret about the right way of doing business. Then I walked back out into the rain – with that regrettably diminished number of bills in my wallet.