sigh...
So, this year, my company will finally retire microfiche as a standard of data storage. I am not even a little bit kidding.
Getting approval to do this was actually a bit hard, and brought to light the silliest practice ever. For the past 20ish years we have made a microfiche copy of the new business forms each night, without exception. This has in recent years come to take 13 tapes each and every night. We launched a feasability study to look into discontinueing this and discovered that in 2004 the internal customers who used to require these had found software ways around this, and told the printing department that they didn't need the microfiche anymore...So then the printing department said nothing to the guys performing the job, and just started peeling the label on the tapes each night and sending them back to the job the next morning. That's right, for the past 3 years we've been writing microfiche on the SAME 13 TAPES! Imagine that you are one of these print guys, and in 2006, say, you have to train a new guy. How do you explain this elaborate rain dance?
"In the evening, the thunder gods send us the great 13 tablets. It is our sacred task to remove the pieces of paper and place them within the sacred receptacle, where candy wrappers go. Then we return the great 13 tables to the thunder gods in the evening."
Gah!
Getting approval to do this was actually a bit hard, and brought to light the silliest practice ever. For the past 20ish years we have made a microfiche copy of the new business forms each night, without exception. This has in recent years come to take 13 tapes each and every night. We launched a feasability study to look into discontinueing this and discovered that in 2004 the internal customers who used to require these had found software ways around this, and told the printing department that they didn't need the microfiche anymore...So then the printing department said nothing to the guys performing the job, and just started peeling the label on the tapes each night and sending them back to the job the next morning. That's right, for the past 3 years we've been writing microfiche on the SAME 13 TAPES! Imagine that you are one of these print guys, and in 2006, say, you have to train a new guy. How do you explain this elaborate rain dance?
"In the evening, the thunder gods send us the great 13 tablets. It is our sacred task to remove the pieces of paper and place them within the sacred receptacle, where candy wrappers go. Then we return the great 13 tables to the thunder gods in the evening."
Gah!