The New Guy

We got a New Guy this week. Our guy really is a guy, Dan Noennig, but that's not important. It could just as easily have been a New Gal and it wouldn't change things.

But you know how I'm really big on checkpoints, those "From here on, it'll be different" moments that we use to measure our progress, or at least our journey. This was of course one of those. But it is a good time to take stock, too. What are we doing and why, and how?

I have never learned so much as when I sat down to teach someone something. It really is the best motivator to learn that I have ever encountered. Someone, somewhere, will ask the Incredible Question and expect me to have an answer. I hate to disappoint people, so I always try to give them one. Taking someone around to meet all the new people they will be working with is another opportunity for that. "We do this, then we do that." "Really? Why do we do that last?" Geeze, I dunno. We've always done it that way.

But is it really the best way?

Back in the era of the Steam Powered Computer, I was a mainframe computer operator. Everything I was required to do came out of a Job Book. Tonight is Job Cost Accounting night, so we turn to that page. It says mount this tape on that tape drive, put this kind of paper into the printer and then at the console type >> GO JCA. Very detailed. But I was always troubled by one part. I was called upon to print a report on three-part NCR (No Carbon Required) paper, which was not known for its high print quality. But so far, so good. The instructions further called upon me to burst and decollate the three copies of this report, to put the first-generation report here, the second-generation report there, and to throw away the last copy. This job had been run in exactly this way for at least three years before I showed up.

I asked why we couldn't just print that report on two-part paper, which was cheaper and much better quality and would take less time in post-printing processing. You would have thought I was bringing them Fire.

I am not saying I am some kind of a genius. I'm just saying there is value in seeing things through new eyes. Scott Adams has made a fortune poking fun at all of the institutionalized inefficiencies in American work life. This was just one of those.

At one time, I'm sure, there were supposed to be three people who got that report. Maybe one of them was promoted, or fired, or was moved from one project to another. For whatever reason, the third person no longer needed to get a report every week of how the business was doing, and they stopped coming to get the printed report when their need for it ended—but the word never got to the machine room. After a few weeks of the third copy going uncollected, the word got back to the job book that solved the problem the computer operators had: throw away the back copy. But that's not a very Big Picture view of the situation as a whole.

I was amazed. They didn't even shred the third copy. It was routinely thrown away for three years, wasting paper, time, ink, printer hours and some measure of the environment, and it turns out exposing the company to all kinds of risks, should a competitor happen by to do a little dumpster-diving. They'd never given it any thought.

I am sure that there are Stoopuhd Things that we do here every week, but that we've become accustomed to. We did it like this last semester. We did it like this last year. We got from last year and last semester to here, so it must be okay, right? Maybe. Probably, even. But it's good to have someone check your work. It's good to have someone question your assumptions, now and then.

We got a New Guy this week. I hope you get one soon, too.