"Rich Grise" wrote in message
news:WuH0d.875$xH1.335@trnddc03...
On Friday 10 September 2004 09:14 am, John Woodgate did deign to grace
us
with the following:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Tim Wescott
wrote (in
.
com) about 'Another hopeless text: spot the errors...', on Fri, 10
Sep
2004:
I used to know a guy who had worked at a company that made estimator
pads for log scalers -- had keys to enter all the parameters, an LCD
screen, microprocessor, the whole nine yards. The first time he
went to
check it with a _real_ log scaler this old coot stepped out of the
shack, looked at an entire load of lumber on a truck and said
"that's
about X board-feet". Kevin spent half an hour measuring and
entering
and came up with the same number.

Progress. Go figure.

The old coot had probably already measured it. Old coots have a way
of
fixing to win.
--
By golly, I guess I must be an old coot. I went to Staples to get a
ream of 11x17 paper. All they had was a box. (10 reams per). The droid
said that was the only way they can sell it. I said, "Don't be stupid.
Just break open the box and get out a ream." This moron says, "Oh,
they
don't have barcodes on the single reams, they can't scan it." I just
grumbled at him and went up to the register, and asked the kid, "Can
you do a price check?" - BTW, this was the same kid who had got his
boss, who was the one who said they can't sell one ream. So, the droid
is off somewhere, I go slide a ream out of the box, the kid prices it,
and it's about five bucks. So I go to the droid, and ask, "Are you a
betting man? Tell you what - let's crack that box, and if the ream is
not marked, I'll pay you five bucks, but if it is, you gotta buy it
for me." He didn't want to bet, but he relented, and went and got
the same ream that I had just had scanned, but stealthily put back,
and let me buy it. Maybe this should be a true tale of induhviduals.

Cheers!
Rich

I bought a bag of candy at the Ralph's supermarket, and as I checked out
the checker couldn't scan it nor find a price on it, so she had to send
a boxboy back to check the price. This took a minute, so when she rung
it up, instead of 99 cents, she rang 99 items at 1 cent each. I asked
her whay, and she said that they are constantly measuring their
performance, so if they ring 99 items it looks like they're more
productive, like they had to count them out or something like that.

Well, you ask, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Well, it gave me an idea. Just go back and get the price off the 2500
sheet carton and divide it by 2500. Then have them ring it up by the
sheet(!) They can tell the management that they were extrremely
productive and counted them all in only 10.7 minutes! And get a free
break, to boot!

I figured it out and a 2500 sheet carton costs $32 so it's $.0128 a
sheet. That's $6.40 a ream. But I got the prices off their website and
they also show a ream of 11x17 'ledger' as $6.99. So you could save
$.59 if they'll do it my way. But their BOFH website wouldn't work
without cookies enabled. I'll have to delete them when I'm finished. I
think that it's easier to remember 11x17 than it us to remember that
it's ledger, plus it's less typing. Same with legal.

Speaking of having fun with the droids, I mailed a package to Tampa Bay,
FL, this morning. I asked the postal clerk if he had hurricane
insurance for it. He thought that was good for a laugh! ;-)