You know how business people always talk about sweating the details? They tell you that it's the little things that count, and if they mismanage the small stuff, they've mismanaged the company. I'm sure you've heard those sentiments expressed one way or another in various forums.

Well, I'm here to tell you how true it is. In the newspaper business, if you don't get the paper on the porch by the time the customer opens the front door first thing in the morning, it doesn't matter how good your news coverage, sports report or features packages are.

Our delivery system is first rate, but let me tell you about a little thing that went wrong today, and how it unleashed a half-dozen phone calls from angry readers. The cryptoquip failed to list the second letter, as in E equals (blank). If you work the cryptoquip every day, you need to know what E equals.

Actually, some puzzle mavens are so expert at this that they can figure out what E equals -- even with no other clue. One of the staffers on our copy desk called his mom, who is the Mozart of newspaper puzzles. She figured out in a jiffy that E equals Mc2. No, just kidding. That's Einstein's puzzle. The answer here is that E equals i.

When the angry cryptoquipographers called, I was able to give them the good news -- it's i. Several stayed on the phone, however, to ask what happened and why we can't seem to get this right.The cryptoquip has had two errors in as many weeks.

The answer is that it comes to us from a syndicate, and the folks there blundered. But that's no answer. It's not their problem -- it's our problem. We're the ones that had it wrong in your newspaper. So here's what we did: we unleashed our production editor -- a bulldog of an editor -- who called up the top person in charge at the syndicate and explained in the strongest possible terms that we have a problem that needs fixing. Pronto. Essentially, it's a proofreading challenge that can and must be mastered. Everyone -- them, us -- agreed that it would be. A process has been put into place to do so.

For as much as I enjoy chatting with Erie Times-News readers -- especially the intrepid cryptoquipographers -- I don't want to have to make excuses for mistakes. Nobody does. It's bad business. And nobody will tolerate that. Not for long, anyway.

-- Kevin Cuneo