The smartest shortcut is hidden in the scrapheap

In fact, the technician had become known as ‘Mr Troubleshooter’. So JSB asked him what he did that was different. The technician said: “Well suppose this copier here had an ‘intermittent image quality fault’, what would you do?” So JSB looked in the handbook, which said: “Print out 1,000 copies, sort through until you locate the bad ones, then compare the faulty ones against the original.” The technician said: “If you print 1,000 copies at five seconds per copy, that’s 200 minutes, or three hours. Plus all that wasted paper and ink.” JSB asked him what he did that was different. The technician said: “I walk over to the waste-bin and turn it upside down. I know every copy in there is bad, that’s why it was thrown away. Then I compare them against the original and I’ve got my answer. Saves three hours printing, plus all that paper and all that ink.”