Friday, March 10, 2006
Not a good sign, I think.
Where I work, we have these coffee machines that have the name "Dream 500" printed on the front. I have always felt that was a pretty stupid name for a coffee machine, and it has become something of a joke around here. I am guessing that these machines are built in europe, not only because of the name and the general look of them, but because when it is done dispensing your beverage, it flashes a message on its display that says: "Ready Beverage." Almost as dumb, it is equipped with this little gadget that uses a key-looking thing that you keep with you to pay for your purchase. It works like a debit card. You put it in the machine, put a few dollar bills into the machine, and it adds the cash value to your key-thing. Then at a later time, you can put your key-thing into the machine, it reads how much money you have on it, and when you make a purchase it deducts that amount from your balance. It is called the "Key 4000". No kidding.

While in the lunchroom just now, I chanced upon one Mr.JQ who was at the "DREAM 500" coffee machine getting a cup. JQ is one of our "in house" engineers, meaning that while he has the title of engineer, he does not have the full education of one. In the course of some idle chit-chat I made one of my useless observations, noting that it struck me as odd that the Dream 500 was equipped to use the "KEY 4000" debit key. I said that it would seem that it should use a KEY 500 to be correct, and that the current numbering system implies that the KEY 4000 is nearly 10 times better than the lowley Dream 500. JQ replied "Well, in actuality, that implies that it is 20 times better. Coming from the engineering side of things, I think that way, you know." Now you have probably caught this already, but 4000/500 is NOT equal to 20, it equals 8. I chose not to point that out. I smiled, nodded and went on my way.

Perhaps we ought to have somebody double checking his work.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 7:34 AM
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