The story was told by a pencil collector with 40 years of experience, in whose collection 7 thousand copies.

A production meeting was held at the pencil factory under Soviet power. One rationaliser suggested saving a expensive pencil griffle and leaving 5 centimeters of pencil wooden - no one still writes to the end. The rationalist received a prize.

After some time, another rationalizer proposed to cut off the extra wooden centimeters - there is no griffle anyway. He was also supported...

c) The Wikipedia