October 16, 1989
Dear Everyone:
For the first time, since I began this strange
practice, I had a week in which I didn’t have time to write a Letter.
Those of you who have been cursing the US Postal Service, take it
back. The check was
not in the mail.
Usually, I write my Letter at lunch time around the
middle of the week. Let me
tell you about last week…
Monday:
Craft Day at Lunch Time.
“Melanie”, whose lunches are scheduled six weeks in advance, had
decided that we would all get together at lunch time to make “Western
Scarves”. This is something
that her nieces do in Girl Scouts.
You take a perfectly good cotton bandanna, cut strips into it and
“string” beads onto the strips.
In a word, hideous.
Nevertheless, I will finish the one I started and give to someone as
another Circulating Stocking Stuffer for Christmas.
This little exercise took up all of the lunch break and carried
over into the afternoon until our Manager, “Chris Jennings”, happened to
come in looking for “Alma”.
Apparently, she didn’t see anything wrong with us spending Company time
on these things.
Tuesday:
“Rowena”, “Alma” and I had a meeting with CUSA “Public
Manipulation” that carried over into the lunch hour (tit for tat;
sometimes you do Company business on your one time.
It all comes out in the wash.).
When we got back, “Melanie” and “Carla” were happily making
Christmas tags from 3X5 cards, using “Melanie’s” rubber stamps.
“Melanie” has a remarkable collection of Christmas stamps that
you can mix and match to make original and interesting tags, cards and
wrapping paper. Christmas is
“Melanie’s” favorite time of year, so she likes to start it as early as
possible.
Wednesday:
Knowing that I had a salad and a bag of grapes waiting for me in
the refrigerator, I only packed a sandwich for lunch.
Then when I got into work, I discovered that someone, who shall
remain nameless (but whose initials are “Alma Tunney”– no one else would
do it) had helped herself to my grapes.
Also, my salad had taken a turn for the worse, so when “Rowena”
suggested lunch at the Dim Sum restaurant on Mission, I decided to go
for it.
Wednesday was “Tear ‘Kevin’ to Shreds Day”.
“Kevin” was preparing to give his first presentation on “IDHS”,
as well as his first public address before a large group of people
(large, by my definition, is anything over about 5, sometimes 3).
This presentation was being given by the “IDHS” Project Team, of
which both “Kevin” and “Holtz” are members.
The Team had discussed the content of the speech and
demonstration and approved a script that “Holtz” had written.
“Melanie” and “Alma” decided that it needed
rewriting. While “Holtz” was
in ““Lafayette”. Poor
“Kevin” tried to point out that it was the Team’s presentation and not
Records Management’s, but those two can be quite hard of listening when
they want to. Add to this
the fact that they are diametrically opposed to each other and then step
back and watch the fireworks.
“Melanie” is a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, very
prim and proper, everything exactly so, a perfectionist to the core.
“Alma” is a loud-mouthed, bull-in-a-china-shop
Texan, whose favorite way of doing things is “quick-and-dirty”, get it
done fast, whether it’s right or wrong.
“Melanie” hates anything technical.
She kept trying to change the words to “less techie”; she even
objected to the word, “computer”.
“Alma” loves to use techno-words because it makes it sound like
she knows what she’s talking about.
And they both wanted to change “the flow”.
We spent most of the morning listening to “Kevin’s”
speech, dissecting each phrase, discussing how to rearrange the order of
the slides and how to “explain” to the audience why their handouts
(which were done the week before) didn’t match the screens they would be
looking at…
About the time “Melanie” said:
“Let’s take it again, from the beginning”, I slipped out, bumped
into “Rowena”, and the two of us escaped to All You Can Eat For $4.95
plus tip.
Thursday:
I actually thought I’d have plenty of time to write a Letter,
even though I was in Company Park instead of my office.
When you work on the timeshare computer, any place that has a
computer terminal will do. I
would only have to find a printer that I could “batroute” the file to
when I was ready to print it.
There would be at least 5 terminals available for demonstrating
“IDHS” after “Kevin’s” presentation and I didn’t expect them to all be
busy. When we gave the same
presentation in San Francisco the week before, only 4 people were
sufficiently enthralled to come and try the system for themselves.
The demo room was deserted an hour after “Giles” finished his
speech.
But first, the presentation.
Disaster City.
Up until 5 minutes before it was supposed to begin,
they still couldn’t get the terminal which projects onto the big wall
screen to work. Finally,
“Doug Thompson” (a Project Team member who works in Company Park) went
to his office and dismantled and brought over his own PC and hooked it
up. That worked.
Then “Sarah Thatcher”, the Project Team Leader,
found out that “Kevin” had changed the order of the slides, which didn’t
go over too well with her.
Needless to say, “Kevin” was between a rock and a hard place.
How do you tell your boss that you can’t take her “suggestions”?
And how do you explain to your Project Leader that you changed
her script without getting her clearance?
Another slight catch:
“Bruce Knight”, yet another Project Team member, was supposed to
make the arrangements for the presentation and the demo terminals.
This is the same “Bruce Knight” who had arranged for the terminal
that wouldn’t project on the wall like it was supposed to.
He also set up the demo terminals in Building B.
Maybe no one else realized it, but I knew immediately that we
were going to have a problem.
Building B is a high-security building.
You have to have a special pass to get in.
So we had to arrange for anyone who wanted to try
“IDHS” for themselves to get special clearance in order to “drop in” for
a hands-on demo.
All of this and by the time “Kevin” got up to the
podium, he was already a nervous wreck.
Then he came up against the Fight/Flight Reflex in all its glory.
The poor guy could barely remember his name, much less what he
was supposed to say about “IDHS”.
Everything just drained out of this brain in a second.
But somehow he got through it and a few people
actually wanted to try the system, only the demo terminals wouldn’t be
ready for another half-hour.
What a morning! Eventually,
we all ended up in Building B, with the terminals and a few customers.
Then everyone wanted to go to lunch.
I volunteered to stay “until someone comes back” and cover the
room in case any more customers showed up.
Here was an opportunity to do some Letter writing.
No sooner did everyone disappear than a guy showed
up wanting a demo. Demos can
be tiresome because you have to
talk a lot. I don’t know
of any other way to explain a system than by talking about it.
This guy and I were going great guns (what happens if we press
this key?) when “Alma” came back in.
She offered to spell me so that I could get to the cafeteria
before it closed at 1:00.
But just then another person came in and I started all over again with
her. When “Kevin” came in,
and was able to take over for me, it was just past 1:30.
I finally went out for some lunch around 2:00.
So much for Thursday.
Friday:
One of the great things about working in Company Park in the
mornings, whether it’s for a meeting, a class or a presentation, is that
you usually have enough time to both sleep in
and eat breakfast.
Friday was no exception. I
didn’t have to leave home until an hour later than normal and I still
had time for a big breakfast at the cafeteria.
This presentation went better because “Erin
Vandyke” (you guessed it, another Team member) gave the speech.
This time the speaker was all right… and the computer refused to
work. “Erin” has had more
experience with public speaking and carried the show easily, even with
“Alma” jumping up and down, answering questions before “Erin” could and
generally being, well, “Alma”.
By the end of “Erin’s” speech, the projection
terminal still wasn’t connecting with the computer, so I went over to
Building B and set up some terminals for hands-on.
We figured we’d do them in groups around the small terminals.
I had a small group of people from the Ventura office (they’d
chartered a plane and flown up from Southern California) gathered around
mine. I started
demonstrating, explaining the screens more fully than would have been
possible with a larger group and the big screen.
“Erin” came over and we more or less did the same demo that would
have been part of her speech.
Personally, I think the smaller group approach works better.
These people certainly came away knowing more about “IDHS” than
they would have if the presentation had gone as planned.
By the time I’d finished with the Ventura group,
“Alma” and the other Records Management people, except “Kevin”, had gone
back into the City. “Erin”,
“Kevin” and I had lunch in the cafeteria.
A couple of adventurous souls came by in the afternoon to play
with the system. We were
pretty much finished by 3:00.
I could have started a Letter then, but, frankly, I was too
tired. And I still hadn’t
found a printer.
Well, that was the week that was.
In other news…
The San Francisco A’s are leading the Oakland
Giant’s 2-0, or maybe it’s the other way around.
Go Team(s)!
Love, as always,
Pete
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