Swiping In and Out

It's incredible how people can think of so many ways to beat the system and to break rules. Guess, that's also the reason why there are so many inventors too.

Do you remember the old days when to make sure of your attendance, the management asks you to punch your work card when you come in and when you go out of the premises? The machine would be like this: a clock face and a slot where you insert your work card in, and it will time stamp the hour, minutes and seconds of your arrival at the workplace. This device serves as a proof that you did work on certain day and came on time or late. This also serves as a way the management decide whether to increase or deduct your salary based on your attendance. Ka-Chung!



Finally the top people discovered that a few staffs were being dishonest and were cheating on the attendance. The staffs were asking their friends to swipe the cards for them. The machine is just beside the security guard and the guard didn't even blink an eye to see a person swiping 2 cards at the machine. Sometimes, the guard even help to swipe the card for the late comers.



A brainstorming session was held. Then, a light bulb suddenly blink on top of one of them, and he said: Let's copy establishment Y's way by using an ID card. It looks more professional by the way. So began the lining up process of taking photos (some looking photogenic and some were hardly recognizable :p hehehe.. one day with a beard, and the next day, none.), putting down the details and laminating the ID card. Voila..



At first, everything was going on smoothly. You line up, you take out your own id card, swipe at the machine, and continue your work day till it's time to swipe out again. Day in, day out.. 6days/7.

Then some bored workers were fed up.. Hey, this is no fun at all. Let's think of a way to see how efficient the machine is. They studied the ID card and thought that it was a piece of cake to copy it. Copy and paste.. copy and paste: there you have it: 10 fake ID cards which look like the original copy. Swiping in and swiping out happily for friends and the rest of the gangs. The management were lucky enough to get hold of those guys.



So back to the boardroom. The top people now thought of a thumb print ID machine. Instead of swiping your card, you need to put your thumb at the machine to record your attendance. A smart guy puts up a hand : 'But what if the person does not have a thumb? Or does not have a hand or two hands for that matter?'Grr..in the first place you have 2 hands.. and at least one of the hands must have a thumb doesn't it? . The same person spoke again: And what if the thumb has no print? What shall we do?'

(I was looking around, from right to left, Everyone was so serious and was actually listening and thinking. Why is it when we talk about occupancy and rooms availability, we just cannot get this kind of attention? Another of life's mysteries.)

Conclusion? We went and bought a 'FINGER' print ID machine. A long queue again, lining up to record a finger print. No thumbs, no middle finger please. Only the forefinger accepted and you have to record both right and left finger.. in case you accidentally cut a finger and the machine doesn't recognize you.



What if someone finds a way to outsmart this machine also? Hmm.. are we going to buy a machine that detects you by the color and print of your eye? (Like the movie in which Tom Cruise undergo an eye surgery just to confuse the spider like robots so that they would take him for another person). Wonder what they will think up next?