Unconventional ideas are unconventional

In our office we have a multifunctional fax machine which is there for years. And of course the same machine has the same number since the dawn of time. One day the boss was gesturing around during a phone call for the n-th for someone to tell him the fax number so he can pass it on to somebody else at the another side of the line.

I can understand that; the number is somewhat hard to memorize, and many times you can’t recall something when you really need to and vice versa. After that call I made a modest suggestion: put a sticker (or whatever) on the fax so anybody can just look at the machine and read the number when needed. That would make sense because the fax is visible from all parts of the office so some nice big numbers would help a lot.

Something like this:

 

It doesn’t even had to be a sticker, a felt tip marker would do great. But no, the guy just smiled and continued with his work.

This is what happens when you are so much involved in your usual stuff that you discard everything which doesn’t fit in someone’s habit, workflow or whatever. I can bet that if the guy thought about this idea for just 3 seconds it would make at least some sense. But anyways the loss is at his end unfortunately.