The problem with boxes

16 Feb

Trivia time: Let’s say you have 180 trinkets, and you need to ship them somewhere. You don’t have a box that holds all 180 trinkets, but you have the following sizes available to you:

  • Large (100 trinkets)
  • Medium (50 trinkets)
  • Small (10 trinkets)

You are trying to avoid using up many boxes, because you like to hug trees on your spare time, but also because it is a pain to package all this stuff. Specially when the tape gun seems to hold some sort of grudge against you.

What is the most convenient way to package and ship these trinkets?

[Pause]

[Cue: Your answer goes here]

These are the possible answers I came up with:

It would appear that using a large box, a medium box, and three small ones would be the most efficient way. Right?
Why would you want to ship, say, one large box, and eight small ones?
Right?
Now, let’s replace trinkets with Cisco Call Manager licenses. And boxes with PAK documents. And packaging with 11-digit alphanumeric, non hand-alternating serial numbers.
You see how that could take up some of your time?
This rant was brought to you by the letter D. “D” is for dehydrated brain.