Recently, LA Fitness (the gym that I work out at) instituted a reservation policy for spin classes by a popular instructor – replacing a simple “first come, first serve” policy. To implement this new policy (requiring additional LA Fitness resources and time commitments), a number of additional policies were created – like signing-in, attendance taking, enforcement, etc. By the time they are done with this, they will have umpteenth number of intertwined policies – one policy to enforce another and so on. This has resulted in a very unpleasant outcome – unhappy customers.
Why couldn’t they have left the original (and simple) policy of “first come, first serve” alone? Here is a good example of bureaucracy gone wild!
The Curved Road 