Every year when Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield gets ready to start its 10,000 Step Challenge, the maintenance staff kicks it into high gear.

It's not that they are walking more, though some are, it's that they are getting ready for the calls to rescue the little step counters.

The word goes out to employees not to flush pedometers if they fall in the toilet because they can get stuck in the plumbing. Instead, they should call maintenance to fish the pedometer out. Then they can get a free, clean, replacement.

It's all part of the 10,000 Step Challenge, a program to try to get people to take at least 10,000 steps a day as a way to improve their health.

Last year at Penn Avenue Place, which used to be Hornes' flagship department store, a woman's pedometer fell into the escalator. There was a tremendous crunching sound as the moving stairs stopped. Maintenance had to retrieve the pedometer, not to save it, but to save the machinery.

Wellness can be tough.

Kevin Nauer, the manager of the employee wellness program for employees of Highmark, has the stories to prove it.

One woman at Highmark attached her pedometer to her blouse, then complained because not only was it not registering her steps, but it was hitting her in the chest. The proper placement for the pedometer, as it says in the accompanying instructions, is on a waistband or belt.

Another Highmark worker attached the pedometer to her dog's collar -- she wondered why it did not register how many steps the dog took.

Employee teams, competing for the prize of a 10 minute neck and shoulder massage, are going all out to try to get the most steps.

And, while some people have to be encouraged to walk, others, once they have a way to measure their steps, can become a bit obsessed with the pedometer. Mr. Nauer said he has had people call upset that they didn't make it to 10,000 steps.

"I've got to calm them down and get them off the ledge," he said.

The carnage among the pedometers is incredible. Aside from the pedometers in toilets, they have been run over by buses and cars -- luckily, not when the users were wearing them. One woman's child threw a pedometer from a car, and it was mailed back to Highmark by someone in West Virginia. Another pedometer was flung off a two-story balcony by a 3-year-old.

Still though, the pedometers get people moving. Mary Grasha-Houtt, the human resources director for Visit Pittsburgh, has seen the benefits of the 10,000 Step Challenge, which is part of a multi-step wellness program Highmark has created for its employees and its clients.

Last year when Visit Pittsburgh ran the program, some employees said they lost weight, others said their clothing fit better. "They got into the habit of walking and that made them feel better," she said.

An added benefit was that when workers walked together to add to their step counts, they built camaraderie by spending time together out of the office.

Another benefit is the savings in health care costs. In an article published in the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, researchers studying Highmark, which paid for the study, showed that for every dollar spent on wellness programs, the non-profit saved $1.65 in health care costs for its employees.

Highmark has taken wellness to a high level. The non-profit installed a gym on the first floor of its Downtown office building with a dance studio, locker rooms and a small kitchen for nutritional trainings.

Since all company spending is ultimately to affect the bottom line, the bottom line on wellness, according to Highmark, is that it saves money.