This project involves statistical analysis of some massive government-collected data files — so big that kicking unneeded fields out of the working database is a priority, reports a pilot fish in the know.

“Hotshot database analyst had the boss call a meeting so everyone could go through the file record documents, item by item,” says fish. “Do we need this field? Do we need this one? Basically, any field no one spoke up for would get omitted from the big database load.

“The chief statistician on the project objected: ‘Most of those fields we’re eliminating are only one or two characters. If we don’t know what they’re used for, wouldn’t it be safer to keep them?’

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