Apr. 15, 2006 - 19:46 MDT

REVERSE MOTHER HUBBARD

There is a lady whose column is usually in the Saturday Rocky Mountain News in the business section of the paper. "Erica Heath is a 20-year veteran of the corporate wars," it says at the bottom of her articles. Bare facts and funny observations are combined in todays column. Herewith in full:

OLD COMPUTERS CLOG ELUSIVE 'WAREHOUSES'

"Remember the paperless office ? That was one of the many blessings computer visionaries have been promising us for decades. Despite floppy discs, zip disks and flash drives, despite electronic networks, and despite the Internet, we haven't gotten to the paperless promised land yet. If my office is any indication, we never will. but thanks to our old friend, the Law of Unintended Consequences, piles of paper are the least of our workplace disposal worries. We're now up to our armpits in hazardous waste in the form of old computers.'

"According to a recent report in The New York Times, more than 63 million obsolete computers were replaced last year in the U.S. Each castoff is likely to contain several pounds of lead, as well as traces of mercury, cadmium and fire retardant."

"Since these are all toxic substances, you can't just put ol' Bessie out with the trash. Doing away with a computer isn't easy."

"Aside from environmental concerns, dumping computers illegally is a bad idea. They're likely to take their memories with them, including their original users' private information. That's why responsible recyclers stopped using prison labor to dismantle old computers."

"It seems that every time we try to whip office waste into line, it seeks vengeance like the brooms and buckets in Fantasia. I've been to offices where they've fallen in love with their shredders. The result is fluffy trash bags piled so deep they require safety cones. I worked for one conscientious company that recycled paper and gave everybody a separate trash receptacle to make the process more convenient. I came to see my used-paper bin as a supplementary file cabinet. After a couple of archaeological digs to unearth an old document I thought I'd never need again, I grew paranoid. I never made a trip to the central recycle bin until the day I left."

"The typical office solution for large quantities of unwanted items to to box them up and ship them off to the warehouse."

"For all I know, warehouse could just be a polite term for landfill since I don't know any corporate employee who's seen one in person. If I'm looking for something and find out it's in the warehouse, I invariably conclued I don't really need it after all."

"I suspect many companies take the easy way out with their old computers, but they'll run out of room in the warehouse eventually. The Times notes that many computers can be refurbished and sold or given away. The day is surely coming when school districts, charitable organizations and Third World nations are awash in donated computers and will stop taking delivery."

"Maybe the solution is to start working with interior designers to reclassify old computers as decorative items. Crafty types can dress up the old warhorses with decoupage or snazzy paint jobs. Those restaurants that hang random artifacts on their walls and ceilings could add computers to the bric-a-brac mix, along witht the dented tubas and cricket bats."

"One thing is clear: If we don't start getting creative in a hurry, we're going to need much bigger warehouses."

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Erica Heath has points, good ones and she applies a very humorous outlook to it.

Just doing a bit of offhand thinking, anybody been to Applebee's lately ? ?

I remember one place of my employment wherein items once used and not needed were consigned to the "Bone Yard." At first it was only items of unused lengths of various metals, but deteriorated to storage of kluges of most any sort. Then there was a corner of the building that began to be called the "Bone Yard" where items subject to weather deterioration were stored (which had storage files and boxes). I don't know how things worked out as we were laid off after a contract was finished. By the time they called me back I was working for another company.

One idea that might be a possibility is to free every "convict" who is in for "victimless crime," lay the guards off and use all those many prisons for "warehouses." Or, put the guards and the DEA employees on "border patrol."

Still chuckling, I am.

Some day, the lady will check and find that she has been done a REVERSE MOTHER HUBBARD . . . . . . . . .

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