# Quote — Max Barry, Company

> “Customers are vermin, Mr. Jones. They infect companies with disease.” He says this with complete solemnity. “A company is a system. It is built to perform a relatively small set of actions over and over, as efficiently as possible. The enemy of systems is variation, and customers produce variation. They want special products. They have unique circumstances. They try to place orders with after-sales support and they direct complaints to sales. My proudest accomplishment, and I am being perfectly honest with you here, Mr. Jones, is not the Omega Management System and it associated revenue stream—which, by the way, is extremely lucrative. It is Zephyr. A customer-free company. Listen to that, Mr. Jones. A customer-free company. In the early days, you know, we tried to simulate customers. It was a disaster. Killed the whole project. When we started again, I cut every department that had external customers. It was like shooting a pack of rabid dogs. Now, I’m not claiming Zephyr Holdings is perfect. But we’re getting there, Mr. Jones. We’re getting there.”

- Author: [Max Barry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry.md)
- Book: [Company](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry/company.md)
- Page: 105
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Barry#Company_(2006)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry/company/customers-are-vermin

## More from this book

> Senior Management may have been incompetent; it may have been corrupt; it was certainly full of assholes—but they were their incompetent, corrupt assholes.

p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry/company/senior-management-may.md)

> “What happened to sticking together? What happened to teamwork?” He gives Holly a dirty look.
>
> “Hey,” Holly says. “You know what Roger told me? He said there’s no such thing as teamwork. It’s a con. The company doesn’t promote teams. If you want to get ahead you have to screw everybody else and look after yourself. Co-workers are competitors. Roger told me the truth: there’s no I in team, but there’s no U, either!”

p. 237 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry/company/what-happened-to-sticking.md)

> Mona says bravely, “I can’t see how this will work. You can’t abolish Senior Management. Zephyr isn’t a democracy. It’s a corporation.”
>
> “I believe,” Klausman says, “that Jones is advancing the theory that those two concepts are not mutually exclusive.”

p. 289 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-barry/company/mona-says-bravely.md)