In light of the recent security problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory, lab employees have had to undergo some rather strict new security procedures. No division has been affected more strongly than the applied physics division (X division), where I work.

The lastest new rule states that, if you open your secure materials safe, you cannot leave your office until you've closed it and someone else has verified that it is securly shut. This means that if you needed to go to the bathroom, for instance, you have to call someone to come look at your safe before you can leave the office.

What the people who set up the rule didn't realize is that this rule sets up a race condition which could lead to the following situation: everyone could get stuck in their offices with their safes open at the same time!

If you and I go in on the weekend to get some extra work done, and we go into our offices and open our safes, we're stuck. We have to call around and try to get someone to drive into the lab to let us out. We could be there all weekend.

Hrmm... maybe there was some reasoning behind this afterall...