Reading the Numbers

The capability: you can tell what a variance is telling you before investigating it.

Prerequisites: Modules 5, 53, 54.

The practice

Confirm the variance exists. One method, one person, one time — because inconsistent counting produces phantom numbers.

Then analyze by category rather than in aggregate.

Then check the spouts. Two minutes.

Then run the free-pour test, framed as calibration.

And audit the comp and remake recording for a week.

The reference

The graduated cylinder, and the previous period's count taken the same way.

What you are building

The habit of reading location before assigning cause.

A variance isolated to the well points at the free-poured category — the one with no measurement on it, per Module 53. That is a mechanical finding rather than a moral one.

And theft belongs last — not because it never happens, but because the mechanical explanations are cheaper to test, more likely to be true, and starting with suspicion damages a bar that probably has a spout problem.

Verification and boundary

The category analysis and the pour test spread.

Boundary: any investigation touching an employee's conduct belongs with a licensed attorney.