I concur with Jeff.

[p]Some of that was just simplifying the problem for the post, and some was due to the legacy tables and code thrust upon us. This app sits downstream from a massive accounting system; I don't have much control with how the mothership serves me data.

Plus, if an 8-digit employee ID fits into a 4-byte int, and the IT shop charges us $22,000 per terabyte per year for SAN space (with no other options :crying:), it doesn't make $$$ sense to use the extra bytes to get a textbook solution.

[/p]

[p]The rest of us have to live in the real world, and not just on these forums.[/p]