Tradition!

This meeting's purpose is to discuss getting rid of several aging mainframe printers, and you'd think it wouldn't be a tough sell, says a pilot fish in the room.

"Technology now allows reports to be sent to a PDF file," fish says. "The reports can then be e-mailed out to the recipients.

"However, one manager insisted that we still needed to keep two of the big bulky printers because his people used the reports each and every morning and had done so for 15 years."

They'll still get the reports, fish's boss tells the manager — they'll just be in electronic form. But the manager sticks to his guns, saying the reports must be on green-bar paper because they're easier to flip back and forth.

In fact, manager says, I have a man who arrives at 4:30 a.m. each and every morning to gather the reports and collate them.

Fish's first assignment after the meeting: Come in at 4:30 a.m. to see what's done with these reports.

He arrives at 4:15 and waits for the early-rising user to pick up the reports. At 4:30 the user comes in, greets fish and collects the stacks of printouts.

Then they walk to the cafeteria, where the user dumps the printouts on a large table and begins the long process of tearing them into smaller reports, each listing a different user's name.

When they're finally all separated, fish follows user to his department, where he drops a report on the chair in each user's cubicle.

How are the reports used? fish asks. "I don't know," user shrugs. "I just come in and do this and then leave at 1 p.m. every day."

Fish waits around until the other users arrive. As they enter their cubicles, he observes each one pick up the report, thumb through it and then dump it into the recycling can.

"After I made my report to my manager, the decision was made to review if reports were needed, and the printers were removed," says fish.

"What happened to the user who arrived each day at 4:30? He had actually gotten used to that work schedule after doing this for a decade and was allowed to continue to do so."

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