Kenny Malone

Anyway, I'm trying to scan this thing and all I can think is like, oh my God, my items per minute is plummeting, plummeting.

And then finally I just let it go down the register, unscanned, and I grab the next item and I move on.

so you gave the cat food away for free yes technically i suppose we would have to say i stole the cat food but to be a good employee that's why you asked me to check the petty theft laws in pennsylvania i was just trying to be a good employee i was trying to get good numbers and i got good numbers my items per minute were i believe the best in the entire grocery store so okay but when your bosses said speed things up i'm sure that they didn't mean break the law in the process yes

Yes, and that is the point of this story.

I may have been breaking the normal law, but I have since learned that I was simply following a different law known as Goodhart's Law.

Goodhart's Law.

It essentially states that if a company decides to measure something, the employees are going to find a way to give you good numbers.

You just may not like how they do it.

And I'm Kenny Malone.

And there are dozens of these laws or rules or principles or whatever you want to call them.

So, yeah, this episode originally ran in 2018, and we just love this episode.

It is one of those where once you hear these laws, you're going to see them everywhere.

You cannot help it.

And again, the way to get that is to pre-order the Planet Money book at planetmoneybook.com.

Oh, we were all babies, Sarah.

We had so much energy.

So much energy.

Hello.

Hi, is this Professor Goodhart?

Yep, speaking.