Hi, I’m a sales order. You know—the piece of paper or computer file on which the customer describes what he wants to buy and for how much. We sales orders are quite common. I was born one morning when a customer wrote me out and handed me over to a salesman. Took about 30 minutes. “Thank you, sir, we will deliver your order in a couple of days,” I heard the salesman promise.

For the next 24 hours, I lay around in the salesman’s dark, smelly office bag. There were a few more orders like me in the bag, and lots of other papers. To keep us company, we had a small box that contained the salesperson’s lunch.

Next morning, the salesman took me to the company’s branch office and handed me and my friends to a stern-looking lady with reading glasses at the edge of her nose. She examined me from top to bottom through her glasses. The scrutiny lasted less than 10 minutes but felt like an hour. She called the salesman over to her desk and handed me back to him. “There’s a mandatory requirement missing. How many times do I have to tell you that we cannot accept orders without this information? I’m afraid you will have to go right back to the customer and get it.”

 …