COLOURS

A hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, had a simple system to cope with organising the huge number of people working there. It designated people to three teams - the red team, the blue team and the white team (the colours of the American flag) - and everything seemed to run smoothly. However, one day, a black patient innocently asked a passing nurse when a doctor could next have a look at him. Without realising what she was saying, the nurse replied, "I'm sorry, sir, I don't know, I'm on the white team." Soon after, the hospital changed its system to incorporate colours that could not be misconstrued in any sentence - the azure team, the turquoise team and the magenta team.

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