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Comment by rge4seesr | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, I would have told the client no. Sure, it's technically possible to have the freshly squeezed orange juice ready at 7am. But it's not just a matter of cost. It's also more likely something will go wrong. And your business may not be able to afford having something go wrong.

Plus, a client asking for something like this - that's a huge red flag that the person asking is going to be very demanding, very clueless, or both. The kind of client that won't be happy with anything you do, and won't be easy to work with.

Our business culture is always teaching us to say yes. But there are some real assholes out there. For your own wellbeing, say no more often. Stand up for yourself. This guy can squeeze his own oranges.

Edit: I should add - it's even more of a red flag when your client does things to "test" you. Sounds like the kind of person who doesn't respect your professional ability, and won't trust you to do your job.

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I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree about this particular request. It's definitely unusual, but I don't think it's "particularly" unusual. From what I know, venue organizers are quite used to dealing with weird idyosyncratic requests and see them as part of their role. This sort of stuff is particularly common in weddings and being able to indulge unique requests is a sort of badge of honor for organizers.

A particularly great example from fiction by the way is Heinlein's "We also walk dogs", which I highly recommend.

Going back to the original post, I might decide against taking the job after learning it was just a test, but that's a separate discussion.

>I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree about this particular request. It's definitely unusual, but I don't think it's "particularly" unusual.

I know it's just an example but this actually seems like a pretty good illustration of the sort of thing that falls into the category of: We can do it. We can even give you a pretty good idea of exactly how we need to do it. But it's going to cost you a pretty big premium.

(And I'd add that high-end hotels probably routinely squeeze a lot of fresh juice for breakfast and have lots of staff doing various prep for breakfast starting in thee wee hours. It may not be a job I'd personally want but this isn't asking for some death march that's much different from day-to-day hotel operations. They may need to hire some extra staff and maybe rent some more juicers but there's nothing inherently difficult about this problem.

You're looking at 1 or 2 tons of orange. It's fairly doable, given enough room with enough workers and juicers, and the supplier to deliver the oranges. I would guess that it's typical work for an hotel.

Forget the workers, you need to juice about 11 oranges a minute (4 oranges/glass)[1]. I'd guess that'd take 20 workers working with electric juicers.

Instead buy a dozen automatic juicers and charge the client to buy new ones.

[1]The juice in an orange is highly variable by season, producer, ect. Just add it to the bill.

4 oranges * 700 people = 2800

add some buffer oranges

Try to do all the squeezing within an hour, as buffer on time.

3000 oranges / 60 minutes = 50 oranges per minute to process

Using a standing orange press - chop orange in half. Put halve into press, push press down, open it up, pop orange out. repeat.

So perhaps 1 orange every 5 seconds. (Batch cut a bunch up initially). Approx 12 oranges a minute, lets say 10 oranges a minute for an employee.

So 5 employees can press 50 oranges a minute.

Add an extra employee as buffer.

So 3000 oranges, 1 hour, and 6 employees.

That's related to the "Brown M&M Test", as named by the detail in the Van Halen tour rider, and used by some people as an immediately visible indicator that the venue actually read the technical specs. If you see a "brown M&M", you know you need to double-check every last detail of the contractor's work. If you don't, you can probably get away with random spot-checks.

In the end, someone has to actually get paid to squeeze the oranges or pick all the brown M&Ms out of the bag, but that cost is insignificant in the face of reassurance that the person with whom you are doing business is reliable and actually listens to you.

The crazy request may only be in there as reassurance that all the mundane details are being handled appropriately. If you screw up the barbershop quartet singing "Copacabana" to arriving guests while wearing Nicholas Cage masks and holding two quarters of a muskmelon apiece, with seeds, then you just might screw up the cake-cutting ceremony, too.

> it's even more of a red flag when your client does things to "test" you. Sounds like the kind of person who doesn't respect your professional ability, and won't trust you to do your job.

This isn't a test that you give to a consultant that you've been working with for years who's had ample opportunity to prove their worth. It's a screening test you give to a consultant that you're considering using but that you know nothing about.

Anyone who starts blustering about complete strangers having to respect their ability is probably someone you don't want to hire anyway.

>It's a screening test you give to a consultant that you're considering using but that you know nothing about.

I'd suggest coming up with better strategies for that. You know, referrals and such.

you just passed the orange juice test.

More seriously though:

>Sounds like the kind of person who doesn't respect your professional ability, and won't trust you to do your job.

There are a lot of crappy professionals out there, I've never been in a position to need to outsource or hire a contractor, but I'd definitely be very cautious about simply respecting everybody's professional ability simply because they might get offended because I didn't respect their professional ability.

I'm not saying "OJ Tests" are a straight-up measure, but you need some way to filter, even if it's subjective.

>Plus, a client asking for something like this - that's a huge red flag that the person asking is going to be very demanding, very clueless, or both.

OR an indicator that you have failed to understand your client's motives and value judgments.

I've learned to never say "no" outright to tasks that are difficult, but not impossible; just unflinchingly quote the price at which I'd be willing to do it. These prices seemed absurd to me and I fully expected to be laughed at... and more times than not, the customer, with some relief, agreed on the spot.

These became some of my most interesting and profitable long-term relationships.

(It should be noted that the "absurdly" high price seems to have a huge filtering factor on the deluded people with unrealistic expectations. There is no small correlation between cluelessness and 'cheapness'.)

To be honest, if I asked a supplier that question and they said they could do it for the right price I'd be concerned about how they treat their staff, and likely wouldn't buy from them. Asking people to come in at 5am so you can make a buck is not a good way to run a business.

Pay people fair for the overtime and I see no big problem with this? All depends on how you define fair though.

Sure, but only if you run your business in a way that means people are able to say no. People will often agree to work unhealthy hours because they fear they'll be let go, or passed over for promotion, if they refuse. Exploiting that fear is very wrong in my opinion. The way the article frames the question doesn't make it clear either way, but personally I'd be very concerned if someone said they could do a job if I paid enough without adding a caveat that they'd also need to consult their staff.

There must be some sort of machine out there than you can rent in sufficient numbers and load the day before.. and maybe make the guests get it themselves (the breakfast will most probably be a buffet anyway since any other setup would be insane).

Convention hotels typically have staff 24 hours a day. They pay shift differentials. They can arrange for extra staff for big events.

The correct thing to do is for the hotel convention manager to say "I will get you a price for that by tomorrow," and go talk to the banquet manager, who will check:

- current price of oranges, and estimated yield and wastage

- number of juicing machines needed

- number of extra staff needed

and come back with a price that reflects the costs, the hotel's desire to make a profit, and their desire to land this particular meeting.

Quick estimate:

2 oz of juice per orange, 14 oz glasses, so seven oranges per glass, 700 glasses, that's 4900 oranges. Three oranges to the pound, 1617 pounds. Allow for 10% wastage, 1800 pounds. $1.32 a pound, $2400 for the oranges. A person with a juicer and a knife can process two oranges a minute, that's 2450 person-minutes, we have 120 minutes to do it, so we need 21 extra people. We pay for a full shift minimum, so $15/hour for 8 hours for 21 people is $2520. We have pitchers and glassware already.

At no profit the cost is $4920 for your 700 glasses of no-more-than-two-hours old hand-squeezed orange juice, and now the convention manager will look at the total price for your meeting and decide what to price it at -- but $10/glass is entirely plausible.

I wonder what the orange juice test response to "No, I can't scrounge up enough staff to fill that order" is. Are logistical impediments acceptable, or should they just increase the price to something astronomical (top pay for onboarding and training new staff) to compensate?

It's a catering company, they are going to drive down to 7/11 and pick up enough random people milling around out front. If they're lucky they will get minimum wage, but at least it will all be cash.

Yeah, I know in this scenario there are ways around - though I'm pretty sure hiring random people on the street is how Project Mayhem succeeded. I was trying to use that as an example for the logistics - if you come to me and ask me "I want a AAA video game" I'm not going go to be able to do that for you as I don't have the resources available.

With an astronomical-enough price, you can afford to hire 10,000 random people, put them all through a college game-development program, and then train the 1% of them that turn out to be good at that particular job into competent game developers. Or maybe use the money as capital to acquire a game studio.

Catering companies aren't exactly known for their good compensation and overtime pay packages.

> Asking people to come in at 5am so you can make a buck is not a good way to run a business.

What? There are millions of jobs that require workers earlier than 9am. So I guess you don't like early mornings, so we should shut all of those down?

A livable wage and modest healthcare sounds like a nice compromise.

Yeah, HN seems like the kind of place to downvote that comment. Maybe if I had suggested healthcare and livable wages on the blockchain or using React it would be more popular.

Can you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So every restaurant that serves breakfast at 7a should be closed down? Or should we prosecute the owners and managers of these restaurants too?

Obviously we should also prohibit security guards from being forced to work before ... 9a? or after ... 6p?

I think you're missing that the relevant people would already be working at these times regardless of any extra large orange juice orders needing to be filled.

Outside of the HN bubble, there are lots of people working at 5am.

I worked night shift job once, for a few months. I kinda liked it.

> Plus, a client asking for something like this - that's a huge red flag that the person asking is going to be very demanding, very clueless, or both.

That client is warning you upfront of an unusual requirement, without you having to digg around, and before you even quote a price. Do you think this one is entitled?

I don't think you necessarily have to ask a stock test question here either. Maybe for a banquet/convention facility it makes sense, if you don't have any particularly tricky requests at the time of booking.

For a software project, your project is probably the tricky thing already. The Orange Juice test there is I just told you want I need, did you put any thought into how you might solve it, what the steps would be, how that would translate into cost, and can you communicate that to the client. Or, did you just throw out a basic number, with no details and no real thought behind it. Asking clarifying questions, or showing an example of something close to the solution is a good sign too.

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