To save paper, mainframe tech ruined a week of work

In a tale that highlights the importance of vigilance in the world of mainframe computing, a UK-based employee named Mark found himself in a precarious situation. The week began as any other, with the potential for both success and failure lurking ahead. The Register, known for its reader-contributed stories of workplace mishaps, featured Mark's account of a week gone awry.

Mark, a veteran of the UK office of Sperry Univac, recounted the era of punch cards, operator scheduling, and the absence of monitors. When a program ran, its results were sent to a printer, and for one task, two printers were utilized to handle different workloads. Mark's responsibility was to oversee a weekly inventory job that ran for five to six days, including the printing of results.

Three managers, all the way from the US, flew in to oversee the crucial job. Once the main part of the job was completed, the team only had to feed in over 20 boxes of paper. However, a smaller job went awry, generating more pages than necessary. Mark, after consulting with the programmer, decided to cancel the print stage. It was then that he realized the printer handling the inventory job had stopped, resulting in the loss of all its output, including summary pages.

The rest of Mark's day was spent dealing with the consequences, as the three senior managers from the US were left waiting for the job to finish successfully. Mark felt terrible about the situation, and while everyone was sympathetic, there was no indication of blame. He ended his account with a warning: if you accidentally terminate the wrong process, don't stop until you send your story to Who, Me?