Pennsylvania to spend $170,000 to teach Liquor Control Board employees to be polite.

Apparently because liquor customers respond to how polite the state-owned monopoly employees are, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (LCB) is spending approximately $170,000 USD on consulting firm "Solutions 21" to teach the LCB's employees on how to be polite, greet customers, and thanking them for their purchase. Read the story here.

I am not an economist. But I would presume that the demand for alcohol is strongly correlated with social/economic factors encouraging/discouraging consumption - not based upon whether the LCB employee greeted you properly.

In addition, since the LCB has a monopoly on the distribution of all wine and spirits in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there is really not a whole of difference if customers prefer one LCB store (let's say it is more polite) than the other.

So I got interested and searched around, and it turns out that the one of the three Pittsburgh regional managers for the LCB, Susanne Hobart is married to the president of Solutions 21, Buddy Hobart. Now - I'm not insinuating that the Hobarts influenced the LCB to award the bid to Solutions 21 (I'm not interested in defending myself against libel).

But offering "training" on proper store etiquette to 29 district manager, 620 store managers, and 3000 employees for over $170,000? Damn.

It might be too late to submit a bid. But for a simple fee of $80,000 dollars + expenses, I will photocopy letter sized newsletters that will be distributed to all 3469 district managers, store managers, and employees. I will even create an electronic copy of the newsletter (in TXT, PDF, DOCX, and DOC formats) - made available online at the LCB's website.

The newsletter will warn all employees that rude conduct against customers will be part of their performance evaluation and may be used to evaluate who gets bonuses, promotions, layoffs, etc (I suspect that may require some policy/legal changes in how the LCB is operated).

Then I will create a channel on youtube called "PLCB Adventures" - and invite people visiting the PLCB and videotape their liquor procurement experiences, and with the power of online polls, we can vote one employee off every month. The employee will be dismissed/demoted/what have you - but then he/she will be afforded the opportunity to make a sincere heartfelt public youtube apology. Upon which the people can vote to reinstate their position.

It would provide entertainment, ad revenues for the PCLB, and also probably have a longer lasting impact than some training session to encourage proper etiquette. Plus it would make me economically well off for a couple years.