The Peculiar Economics of Personal Cot Allocation

Consider, if you will, the humble cot—that mobile patient stretcher, often with wheels, (for those less familiar with the critical infrastructure of patient logistics, as cosmiq_teapot helpfully clarifies). In the intricate world of non-emergency medical transport, one might assume these are fungible assets, assigned as needed. One would, however, be reckoning without the powerful forces of human preference and the informal assertion of property rights, as illustrated in a recent Reddit post. Our protagonist, a driver, had apparently established what we might term a “proprietary easement” over a specific truck and a cot bearing his name. This, naturally, did not sit well with everyone.

From a purely theoretical standpoint, this driver’s behavior presents a fascinating microeconomic problem. Suppose a driver (let’s call him Homo Economicus Ambulatorius) believes that using “his” truck (#26) and “his” cot (the one with his name on it) optimizes his perceived efficiency, comfort, or even — heaven forbid — his status. The operational constraint, however, is that these are shared company assets, meant to be allocated flexibly. When Homo Economicus Ambulatorius insists on always having “his” specific cot, even if it delays operations, he’s effectively creating a shadow market for asset reservation, externalizing the cost onto his colleagues and the general scheduling flow. It’s a bold strategy, perhaps, but one not without its human logic.

Enter the malicious compliance. The aggrieved colleague, rather than directly confronting this assertion of de facto ownership, chose a more elegant path: meticulously ensuring that the driver always got “his” cot. This, critically, included making sure it followed him, even if it meant significant inconvenience for the driver (as Mainehazmt1 sagely notes, “His back will ha…”). The retaliatory strategy here falls under the broader doctrine of “Optimal Inconvenience Delivery” — a subtle art where one meticulously adheres to the letter of the rules to inflict maximum, yet deniable, administrative or physical friction.

The real genius, of course, lies in the lack of dramatic fallout. As Cakeriel asks, “Where’s the fallout?” The answer, in this particular brand of bureaucratic passive-aggression, is that the fallout is the compliance itself. The joy, the satisfaction, comes from watching your adversary meticulously receive precisely what they demanded, at a cost they never anticipated. It is the subtle, administrative equivalent of being called a “cot picken ninny muggin” (a phrase CoderJoe1 has generously provided for the canon of workplace epithets), where the true sting is in the precision of the delivery, not the volume.

Ultimately, this saga of the contested cot illustrates a fundamental truth of any operational structure: official policy dictates flow, but human preference, perceived ownership, and the subtle art of “Optimal Inconvenience Delivery” will always find a way to re-route the system. It’s a testament to the fact that even in the most rationalized environments, the human desire for a personal stake — even in a shared stretcher — can turn straightforward logistics into a surprisingly complex, and rather amusing, game of strategic asset allocation. Seems efficient, for certain values of “human organizational efficiency.”