The Exchange Rate Chalkboard
I put a chalkboard in the break room to track exchange rates, and my crew started betting on the numbers with peanuts, until the board got a name.
When you sell abroad, the numbers move every day. I have a laptop for it, but I decided one winter that I wanted a chalkboard in the break room, so the crew could see what I was fretting over. I bought a used school one at an estate sale for ten dollars and hung it next to the time clock.
Each morning I wrote the day's rate in neat chalk letters. At first nobody looked. By the end of the second week, my night shift supervisor, a man named Earl, started writing a guess for the next day in the corner. His guess was wrong the first time. By the third day, he was right twice and the whole shift was staring at the board.
By February the crew had created a pool. Nobody paid money. They paid in peanuts, a small paper cup each, which is the most honest currency I have ever seen. The winner of each week got the whole pile, and the loser had to bring donuts. I considered stopping it, but I am a dairyman and I know when a herd has found its rhythm.
The board got a name. Somebody wrote it in the corner in yellow chalk: Big Earl's Bureau. People came by to look at it on their way to the time clock. A woman who delivered bottled water stood in front of it for ten minutes and asked whether she could play. The bank's loan officer saw it and wanted to know where I had learned to forecast. I told him, "Peanuts."
I will say this. Our whole crew now knows where the dollar stands and why it matters when the cheese ships. I do not pretend to predict the currency, and neither does Earl. I still read the weekly farm money pages to stay honest. The story went on farm.FM and a listener wrote to say her dairy had started a similar pool in walnuts. I told her to watch the shells.