It’s great to have a workaround to solve a problem, but a lot of workarounds end up creating more work and more waste than the problems they are supposed to solve.

Check out how this tech worker reversed a silly system.

How the crazy process was simplified

Some time ago I responded to a ticket from a small department saying that their Xerox DocuCenter had issues printing that were affecting production.

I talked to the team leader who submitted the ticket and told her the situation. I asked if I could just map another smaller printer in the department if anybody didn’t have it already.

It turns out to be very convoluted.

She said that the Xerox had to be used for its ability to scan. I asked the team leader who I could talk to to see their process so that maybe I could come up with an alternative approach while waiting for Xerox to show up and repair the machine.

She directed me to Lisa, who said:

• I receive a document from Business Admin, which I print to the Xerox.
• Then on the Xerox, I scan that printout to PDF format.
• On my computer, I retrieve the PDF from my Paperport queue.
• I then email that PDF to Files and New Business for archiving and processing.

Then it starts making sense. To Lisa, anyway…

After a quick look, I learned this: The original document that Business Admin sends out is a PDF.

I asked Lisa if she made any changes to the document before emailing it on and she did NOT…

I went back to the team leader and gently said that,

“You’re receiving a PDF document which Lisa does not edit or change in any way. To be clear, it is already a PDF – I have confirmed this – so there is absolutely no reason or need for all of the printing and scanning that Lisa is doing just to email out a PDF.”

It blew their minds.

“Further, because it’s already a PDF, Business Admin should simply mail it to Files and New Business themselves and not even bother you with it.”

The team leader chewed on that for something like 15 seconds and finally said, “Holy cow! This is what Rose told us to do when we took it over from Files because they couldn’t handle the workload.

We never thought about it or to question it!”

Here is what folks are saying.

I would be seething.

Sounds accurate.

Good theory, but too clever.

Never let them go!

You gotta do what you gotta do.

I bet he gets loads of tickets from people who haven’t plugged in their computer.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.