At this one company, there was this drawing of a sheet metal part. It was part of the chassis metal of an item of military electronics equipment. Its drawing was needed by various departments and persons, so copies of that drawing were run-off on a copier.
However!!
As the drawing of the sheet metal part went through the copier, instead of the copier making clean drawing reproductions, the copier put a small circle right in the middle of the print and at first, nobody noticed.
Copyright Capp Enterprises, Inc. Used with permission.
Somewhere along the way though, someone else asked what that hole (the circle) in the middle of the part was for and nobody could answer. Still, it was there and it obviously had to have been put there by somebody for some good reason, right? Nobody knew what that reason might have been, but you can't just go undoing something that someone must have been very careful to do, right?
The next question was: What happened to the dimensions?
Ooh! Those dimensions were obviously missing so quick like a bunny, a whole set of measurements were taken directly off the drawing's circle, tolerances were assigned and the appropriate design change notices were prepared.
The accidental and utterly bogus hole that the copier machine had made actually got incorporated into the design.
Eventually, this whole comedy of errors was revealed, but it had actually taken place and nobody wanted to authorize the costs of undoing the addition of that hole.
Thus, the hole that the copier had created remained in the part's design.
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