False Economy at BPU

So, deep in the bowels of our office-building is a small reprographics office which contains one Canon copier and one Duplo machine. And a new, and not so swift copy-dude (the previous one was sharp as a tack and fast). The "rules" are that under 30 copies are to be made on the copier and over 30 copies are to be made on the duplo machine. This applies as a "per page" rule, and not in terms of total copies.

So if I make 31 copies of a certain page it goes on the Duplo machine, but if I make 29 copies of a 20 page document it goes on the copier.

This has to do with some economy of scale thing that I am too doltish too understand, because I don't get that last example.

Today the copier was down and someone came in to make 12 copies of 5 pages. The copy-dude refused because the copier was broken.

The instructor kept making the point that she needed the handouts for her class.

The copy-dude kept making the point that he could not make them because the copier was broken and the job didn't require 30 copies of each page.

I thought the obvious thing, "ok, ask him to make 30 copies." But then again I thought the copy dude might go mad if she pulled such an obvious switcheroo/fraud on him.

But after 3 fruitless minutes of argument, my solution came to her mind. "Alright," she said, "I need 30 copies of this." And she jammed the papers at him.

He beamed. Not only was he not mad at her, he saw this as a victory for the rules.

So he made the 12 copies (60 pages) that she needed, and then went on to make 18 copies (90) pages that were immediately binned.

Somewhere, in Brazil, a rain-forest wept.

and wept harder when I asked for 30 copies of 10 pages of stuff for which I really only needed 15 copies.

Bizarre to me... the copy dude couldn't see past the number 30 and so, all day, reams of paper were copied to and then tossed out.