Mezzo Swede

A Toast to World Domination
2004-11-16 10:29:37 (UTC)

Mysterious Mathematics

At work today, I spent three hours packing square pieces of
cloth into 8 x 10 ziplock bags. Fifteen cloths per bag.
Now, as if this task wasn't ridiculous enough, I had to use
a special programmable scale, that tells you exactly how
many pieces of square cloth are on it at any given time. So
instead of counting out 15 pieces, I had to take a guess,
and grab a few, and then count backwards from 300,
subtracting 15 each time. The problem was, that it's
virtually impossible to grab exactly 15 each time, so I
ended up spending a significant amount of time either
putting some cloths back, or having to grab a few more. And
as if THAT wasn't lame enough, the scale would fluctuate,
which is exactly what it is NOT supposed to do. It would
tell me there were 299 cloths. So to get 300, I would add
one more. But then the scale read 301!!!!! Tell me,
somebody, PLEASE, how 299 plus 1 can equal 301?? Just when
I thought work couldn't get any stupider. Then I ran out of
ziplock bags.




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