Common sense, who needs it?

In the latest issue of Time Out New York, there is nice little list of suggestions of "How to Succeed in Anything." It is full of funny little tales of doing the opposite of the right thing has gotten people ahead in life. Number six on this list is to simply ignore common sense. This does not, at least not at first, seem to be a good piece of advice. I like to think I have a good amount of common sense, and am fully aware of when I choose to ignore it(see the post below this). I have also become very aware of when others choose to ignore common sense, or even just good judgement; also, the places they have gotten by doing so. 

This brings me to work. I work as a bellman, at a nice hotel. I am constantly faced with the lack of, or at least the lack of use of, common sense within the establishment. My job requires me to look nice, each season they provide a new, hip, uniform for the bellman to wear. It would seem obvious that we have nice winter coats, as my job requires a lot of time spent outside(getting taxis, bringing in luggage, blah blah blah). Instead, the seven bellman share 2 or 3 coats that are, at least, 2 years old. The coats have become a bit worn out, and given the way we are supposed to look, we should really have new ones. There have been many examples of the company trying to save money, usually at the expense of us, this is one of them(it's a recession). 

But when I arrived at work tonight, I saw a bulletin posted in the back office asking us, the bellman, to please come in at a certain date and time, to get fitted for the new custom tailored jacket we would be getting. It would seem that, after a few years, the hotel found enough money in it's budget to get new coats; nice new coats. The coats will be fantastic, most likely the best around. Great, right? Only it's midway through February, by the time these coats get to us I'm sure we will probably get a a couple weeks out of them before it is no longer winter. Maybe I didn't stress enough the importance of our uniforms, or maybe I completely left out my employer's constant struggle to get us uniforms on time(we were intended to have our latest uniforms in time for fashion week of last year, we got them a couple months later). One would think that now, given the time of year, that instead of giving us great new coats that will just have to sit around and wait until next year, why not just get a jump start on a nice spring/summer uniform(there will, undoubtedly, be a lack of money to buy those). The people on staff to take care of these things are in a very successful position with, most likely, a very successful pay check. I'm sure, in the eyes of their even more successful superiors, they will have done a fantastic job. All I ask is, where is the very successful use of common sense? It seems to have been ignored. But hey, look where my use of common sense has gotten me. I open doors for rich people, who probably ignored their common sense.