February 8, 1990
Dear Everyone:
This is going to have to be a
very short letter, more of a note.
I’ve been in meetings all morning and have to return to one
immediately after lunch which is short because the meeting ran long.
We’re reviewing the “IDHS” User Guide, the manual
that’s supposed to tell you all about how to use “IDHS”.
Since it was developed by the same techno-people who did “IDHS”,
it tends to be both maddeningly vague and incredibly detailed at the
same time. In some cases, it
says things like “create and execute a macro” without giving any clue as
to what a “macro” is (a very small fish, right?)
In others, it give sentence after sentence of step-by-step
instructions when all it needs to say is “hit the ADD key”.
It has taken the Project Team members months to
write the original draft.
More months to revise the second draft.
“Kevin” and I have spent weeks reviewing both drafts, checking
for technical accuracy and standardized terms, not to mention such
mundane things as spelling and grammar.
And “Holtz” honestly believed that the three of us could review
the entire book, complete with additions, deletions and revisions in
under three hours.
A typical “Holtz”-ism.
As punishment, we have sent him to spend the lunch
“hour” reviewing the PF Key Definitions before we get back together.
Because the Guide was written in different parts by different
people, things that should be the same are (surprise!) different.
Ask five people to write a 3-line explanation for
how to quit the system and they will bring back 17 ways to say “quit”.
Once we get all the changes agreed upon (the
agreement part has been going extremely well, possibly because there are
only three of us, as opposed to the usual circus-of-a-meeting, and also
because, as “Holtz” put it:
“Nobody’s going to read this part anyway.”), guess who gets to do the
actual red-lining and writing stuff.
Actually, I volunteered.
I have a meeting at 1:00 tomorrow in Company Park.
Now I have something to do that I can carry with me and work on
all morning. This means that
I can a) sleep in; b) eat breakfast; and c) spend a luxuriously quiet
morning getting something concrete done – a nice change.
In other news…
“Jeannie” and I had a great weekend, spending money
and going to a movie called
Tremors. It’s a monster
movie with the protagonists a pair of handymen who figure if they can
just kill the monster, they’ll get their pictures on the cover of
People magazine.
It takes all kinds to make up a world.
Love, as always,
Pete
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