Technology....

And so what happened that day, that infamous day when gleaming technology blinded eyes with its brilliance, you ask?  Well, it happened something like this...

I left the office for a lunch break, so what I am about to tell you was reconstructed from eye witness accounts. All that I know for sure is that when I returned from lunch, there was paper scattered into every corner and upon every surface in the office, the copy machine was out of paper and out of ink.  The fax machine was blinking and the telephone was ringing. 

It seems that one of our electricians, in fact, our top electrician, our guru, our go-to-guy for all things electrical had come into the office to fax a wiring diagram to a local customer. There he confronted the gleaming machine of wonder, just recently programed by the tech-savvy teenager.  The machine was ready to earn its purchase price by its efficiency. 

Well, as the story goes, the diagram was placed on the machine and all was in readiness for one copy.  As his finger hoovered over the 'go' button, the telephone rang, the doorbell buzzed, and in a flash, the finger had come down on the button.  There was no turning back, the rocket had been launched, the diagram was on its way to being copied and becoming two perfect renditions of wiring diagram perfection  -- with one small problem.  The electrician's big finger had hit the 'go' button just slightly off center and instead of making one small copy, the machine, thinking this was its one great chance to really impress its new owners, launched 'GO' and a copy of this wiring diagram was sent to every vendor with a fax number. Every vendor on the list that our tech-savvy teenager had just entered into memory.  And then, with great flourish, the gleaming machine, the state-of-the-art-all-in-one-hulk-of-a-honey-copy-fax-and (well, never mind) machine dutifully made a copy of every transaction.

It was a couple of weeks, before vendors stopped calling to ask for an explanation of the drawing.  It has been some years now, and still, occasionally, someone close to the situation will recall the incident and muse, "I wonder why he didn't just pull the plug?"  I wonder....