It was yet another afternoon of record-setting heat. I loosened my tie, rolled
up my sleeves, and plugged in the fan, hoping to get some of the heavy, humid
air moving, then sat in my creaky office chair and contemplated a city wrapped
in a cloud of smog.Time for a vacation, I thought. I needed to get out of the
city and away from my cramped office, the dusty keyboard, and my usual order
at the diner down the street. I wanted clean, cool mountain air and wilderness
as far as the eye could see.
The phone jolted me out of my reverie. "B.I. Powers," I said as the phone banged against my ear.
"Randal Reynolds here, director of the Organization for the Welfare of Injured
Extremities—OWIE for short. We're a government bureau responsible for
investigating employee injuries at local businesses. We have a case that needs
to be addressed immediately. Can we meet somewhere to go over the details?"
Reynolds asked.
"How about the Mini Diner on East Lake Street in 30 minutes?" I replied.
Over lunch, Reynolds asked me to investigate Wry and Wry Resin Rendering, which had recently experienced a rash of wrist injuries. He suspected that the upsurge in injuries might be covering up some wrongdoing. He further explained that the injuries came from a single department, the Business Intelligence (BI) group. My role was to determine the cause of those wrecked wrists.
As I raced down the road in my '37 Packard, I anticipated a workplace of tiny cubicles containing misplaced monitors and keyboards. My wrath rose at the thought of BI workers sustaining painful injuries because of their employer's indifference.
Ryan Wry, president of Wry and Wry, greeted me on my arrival. While we toured
the facility, I noticed that the offices were downright roomy. Ryan was eager
to point out monitors on robot-like arms and keyboards with wrist rests. "As
you can see," he remonstrated, "our office environment meets or exceeds all OWIE
rules and regulations."
"So you know of no reason why wrist injuries have taken such a big jump?" I queried.
"Well, there might be one thing..." Ryan Wry responded, before being interrupted
by a wail from across the room. I rushed toward the sound, rounded a corner,
and saw a young researcher rubbing his right wrist.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I accidentally roamed into an area of the Analysis Services cube that I don't
have rights to," the worker said, "and the wrist rapper whacked me."
"Wrist rapper?" I said. "Really?"
Ryan reappeared. "Yes; our security department recently implemented the wrist
rapper program. If employees venture into restricted regions of the database,
they get rapped."
"I see," I replied as I approached the researcher's keyboard. I noticed a thin metal band protruding from the keyboard where the Pause key had been. The band reminded me of a slap bracelet, an item my niece Melissa had introduced me to during her recent visit.
Ryan nervously responded, "The program has been very successful and has reduced the occurrence of employees viewing sensitive data by 85 percent."
"Yes, I see. Can you demonstrate the wrist rapper for me, Mr. Ryan?" I asked.
The researcher leapt out of his seat. Ryan sat down and pressed a few keys, and
the wrist rapper quickly snapped down on his right wrist and returned to its
upright position. "See, that's not so bad," said Ryan. "I don't know why employees
are complaining."
"But I imagine that if an employee receives multiple raps each day, it can
become quite painful, "I said. "I'd like to recommend another approach." I explained
that Analysis Services databases can be configured to give users access to only
the areas they need to complete their daily tasks. "For example, you can create
a role that gives the manufacturing group permissions to see all data that relates
to products, such as parts lists, vendor lists, item costs, and product development
times."