Have you ever put grapes in a salad? Many years ago, I attended a Rotary Club meeting at a local restaurant. For lunch, we were asked to select from a short list of entrees and one of the trying-too-hard-to-be-upscale salads appealed to me. You know the type: exotic greens, the mandatory goat cheese and to get the price up: three or four ounces of semi-dry boneless chicken on top. It is amazing what you can get for $12.95.
The most remarkable ingredients to me of this culinary masterpiece were the grapes! They were unforgettable because they were sliced by hand! Sliced grapes! I am not kidding you. Someone took (a lot of) time and individually sliced each of the dozen grapes on each of the salads. (Technical note: Grapes cannot be machine slice; when they are sliced that way, the finished product is referred to as ‘lumpy grape juice.’ These sliced grapes on my salad were what professionals like to call ‘user friendly’ because of how easy to ‘stab’ with a fork they were.
Someone in that kitchen, maybe the chef or the owner, wanted the salad to be perfect, but at what cost? These perfectly sliced grapes, took an extra minute or so per salad to prepare, and with kitchen wage rates, I’m guessing that was about 40 cents a salad, (or almost as much as the greens) for something that most people didn’t appreciate, didn’t affect the flavor of the salad very much, or quite frankly didn’t affect the guest perception (note: I can’t remember the name of the restaurant). Can you imagine clearing a table and seeing the grapes left in the bowl? Great investment that was!
Slicing those grapes was a waste of resources by someone who had to have it ‘perfect’. While the grapes were being sliced, my chicken was drying out on the grill, someone else’s steak tips were late to be started, another diner's broccoli was disintegrating in a water bath, some kid's onion rings were getting cold hanging over the fryer and the kitchen maybe ran out of parsley. Not mentioned is the skyrocketing risk of an accident by using a knife that would have been just as comfortable in a drawer. The ‘opportunity cost’ of slicing grapes was more than the 40 cents per salad because it also had to include what wasn’t done because grape slicing was in progress, as well as the risk associated with using the knife. One accident and it’s not 40 cents but 400 bucks for the grapes on THAT salad.
Are you a grape slicer? If you are a grape slicer in your role, if you have to have things so perfect, if you have to have candles at every dinner you will probably not be as successful as you want. (Technical note: if you are a grape slicer, you already know you drive others crazy.) Now I’m not talking about the difference between low standards and high standards; I’m talking about spending more time on something than the something is worth. The missed opportunities that take place while you are slicing your grapes will go whizzing by and you’ll never see them because your head is down and you are focused on slicing the next grape.
The people we work with or live with usually don’t really care if the grapes are sliced. In fact, try carefully slicing a bowl of grapes and serving them sometime loaded with Bleu Cheese dressing and see what kind of reaction you get! The more grapes you slice in your role, (the more time you waste) the less time you have for efforts that have a greater impact. You can be the greatest grape slicer in the world and not make your budget, or make your family happy, or have an impact. Or you can leave the grapes the way they are (after rinsing of course), and get a lot more things done more quickly. The next time you find yourself ‘tweaking’ a letter for the nth time, or revising a project for the nth time, or rewriting a list so it looks better, or not having enough time to do the things that are expected of you, or fiddling for a half hour on a border or design or another minor detail, ask yourself if you are slicing grapes.
What is more practical, realistic and effective is to do your best, make sure that what you’ve done is worthwhile, and then move on. We get 80% of our results with 20% of our efforts and we likely get none of the results that count by slicing grapes. Whatever role we play in life, our assignment is to have an impact. It's kind of nice to know that it doesn't have to be perfect all the time. If you are a grape slicer and are seeking help, please toss them whole grapes on the salad, carefully put away the knife, put your hands where I can see them, and get moving. Or you can continue to try to be perfect, and when you get there, you’ll be the first.
Postscript: Just for the hell of it, I looked on Amazon and this is what I found. Looks like you can have your grapes and slice them too, or quarter them.
