Mathemanagement

Flashback to the 1970s, when this pilot fish is working as a third-shift operator at a local bank. "We had a Burroughs mainframe with three tape drives," says fish. "The tape drives were used for all processing and nightly backups and got extensive, constant use. They were old, even for that time, and were very slow.

"This caused a lot of hurry-up-and-wait processing, and we started to suggest to management that getting faster tape drives could significantly improve operations. After half a year of documenting and 'proving' that the faster tape drives would be better for the bottom line, they finally relented.

"We were told the date, time and method of getting the new tape drives. The day finally came. I walked into the data center that night, and there they were -- both of them. Two tape drives.

"The bosses decided, in all their wisdom, that because the tape drives were one-third faster than the old ones, we only needed two instead of three since they would process the same amount of data!"

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