When is quality important?

Some people would say that quality is always important, and that the prescribed standards needs to be adhered to 100% to the time. Others say that context is everything. The quality level of, for example, the wooden stick used to stir your coffee, is not the same as the quality level of the bolts holding the engines onto Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner.

I think that I might be tempted to agree with the latter position. And to support my arguments I present three small, flat pieces of wood that I picked up at Blenz. The one of the left is perfectly fine, the one on the right is correct shape, but the the wrong colour, and the one on the middle is the right colour, but it is bent. Will they all work to stir my coffee, or tea? Yes indeed.

So what is the problem? None really. I don't think that anyone else except for pedantic folks like me pay attention the little details like this.

Of course, there is always the other side of the argument. If the quality standards for the stir sticks is slipping, where else has Blenz let its quality decline? The answer is probably nowhere else.

The little things can be a sign of overall quality, but most customers never notice the consistency of small, free, disposable items like the stir sticks. That is lucky, because if they did lots of companies would be in big trouble.