MIT is not lean / Sightseeing by bicycle

MIT is not lean

MIT prides itself of being the vanguard of lean development. But when it comes to MIT itself, the bureaucracy is just incredible. Today, I took my I-20 (some form which every alien must carry when abroad) to the international students office (ISO), because it must be signed. I was ready to wait for a few minutes for someone to sign it. How naive can I be? It takes 2 days to sign the form! It is just incredible. Let's do some calculations. According to Little's law the queue length is equal to throughput times cycle time. So, cycle time is 2 day or 16 hours of working time. I assume that even when doing other tasks, even the slowest official can sign on average, say, 20 forms every hours. So, they must have a constant queue of 16*20 = 320 forms to sign. Well, it may be true. Except that the pile, on which my form was put, was very thin.

Sightseeing by bicycle

I have always wanted to see the center of Newton, MA. Somehow, it fascinates me, it sounds so excotic. Today I decided to cycle there are see how nice a place it really is. But it is too close, just cycling from Boston to Newton would not make up a decent exercise. So, I first cycled all the way up north of Massachusetts avenue past Arlington, over Arlington heights. It was uphill all the way. Nothing to see there, small malls after each other, large wooden houses. It looked so similar all the way, that I was wondering whether I had got lost and was cycling circles. In the end, I found a small gas station, bought something to drink, and turned back. It was much easier to cycle back to Watertown, all the way downhill. From Watertown, I cycled up by the riverside (which I have done once earlier, a nice route), and finally found a place which I assume is the center of Newton. It looks like a Wild West village. Small, low house, some taverns, and that is it. Nothing to see there. Again those large houses, empty streets, almost no pedestrians, no cyclists. Fortunately, some women were walking with their kids, when I started to think that I really had got lost. It turned out that I had, I was cycling to west, away from Boston. I turned back, and finally came back after cycling 2.5 hours and some 30+ miles (50+ kilometers).

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from July to September 2005".