March 15, 1990
Dear Everyone:
Beware the Ides of March.
And watch out for people from technical file areas,
too.
Remember “IDHS”, the “Integrated Document Handling
System”? Of
course you do!
This is the computer indexing system set up for anyone in the
Company to use to keep track of their records.
Well, one of the things that you can keep track of is the
organization of a person who writes (author) or receives (addressee) a
document.
There is, however, a slight problem.
Too many organizations.
When CRC Technical Files went online, they dumped some 10,000
organizations into the system.
(CRC is Company Research Company.
They were one of the first groups to get into “IDHS”, partly
because “Sarah Thatcher”, who is the supervisor of their Technical
Files, is the “IDHS” Project Team Leader.)
When “Company Ecological Health Center” joined up, they copied
CRC’s organization list (called a Validity Table) and added more to it.
And there are other groups coming online all the
time, including (by next month, I hope) Records Management.
What this adds up to, so far, is about 25,000 organizations, give
or take a contractor or two.
All of which is slowing down the system.
So the Project Team decided to form an
“Organization Review Team” to set up a “Global” table that everyone in
the Company could use. This
will, hopefully, cut down on a lot of duplication of organization names
(it’s amazing how many different ways people can come up with to say
“Company”) and allow some standardization.
The Organization Review Team consists of
“Lorraine”, who works for “Sarah Thatcher” in CRC Technical Files;
“Ruth”, who works in “Company Ecological Health Center” (an offshoot of
CRC); and me, who tries to avoid work at all costs.
There may be a fourth, “Carol” from
CUSA “Entrepreneuring”
if we can get her
roped in.
So far, we’ve had two meetings.
In the first meeting we decided to wait until a second meeting to
decide where and how often we would meet in the future.
The second meeting took place yesterday, at the “Ecological
Health Center” near Mountaintop in “Martinez”.
Which means, I had to get myself, plus 10 large
3-ring binders to “Martinez” by 1:00 pm.
No problem.
Plan A:
“Kevin” helped me carry all the binders (these are printouts of
the 25,000+ organizations already in “IDHS” in various sorts) to the
garage at 555 Market, the building next door to mine.
I explained to the garage man, “Charlie”, that I was going to
need a car to take them to “Martinez”.
This was at 10:00.
“Charlie” said it was OK to “park” the binders there until it was time
for me to leave. Then I went
back to my office, took care of some things and gulped down a McBurger,
filled out a company car pool form and took it to the garage.
They didn’t have any cars.
They were all checked out by the time I got there.
(No, you can’t reserve one, unless you’re a VP or something.)
Plan B:
When the 555 garage doesn’t have any cars, you go to the company
garage at 225 Bush Street, a couple of blocks away.
I could then drive the car back to 555 to pick up my binders and
head for “Martinez”. But
before I walked over to 225, I asked “Charlie” to call over and make
sure they had a car I could use.
They didn’t have any cars.
Plan C:
when the company car pool is empty, they have a contract with
Hertz to rent a car. They
even have a special form all printed up.
You just take the form to Hertz and drive away.
When you return the car to Hertz, they give you a copy of the
form to take back to the garage.
So “Charlie” called Hertz.
They didn’t have any cars.
Plan D:
Call Avis. Avis (they
try harder) had a car, if I
hurried. So I nipped over to
Battery Street and got in before anyone could get the car… only the
computer didn’t want to work.
Finally, the computer agreed to spit out the form, I got into the
car and found my way back to the 555 garage where my binders were
patiently waiting for me.
A mere 22 minutes before I was supposed to be in
“Martinez”, I called “Ruth” and left a message that I would be late, but
I would be there. I took
off… and promptly got caught
in a backup on the Bridge because of a stalled car.
Clearly, God did not want me to go to this meeting,
but I went on anyway. We did
(finally) have our meeting and decided that future meetings would be on
Wednesday mornings, alternating location between “Martinez” and San
Francisco. We also took a
look at all those binders and decided to each keep a set, which means I
kept 3 binders, “Ruth” kept 4 (2 sets, actually) and “Lorraine” took 2.
This, at least, we could agree on.
How we’re going to standardize all those names is another matter.
“Lorraine” began each sentence with “the way we do it”, meaning
the indexing system in CRC’s Technical Files.
I would then point out that not everyone’s files are as technical
as theirs and no, I don’t think you can just
tell a group as large as CUSA
“Entrepreneuring” that they aren’t allowed to use divisions just because
CRC doesn’t include “Entrepreneuring’s” divisions in CRC’s index.
By 5:00, I think I was beginning to get on
“Lorraine’s” nerves. This is
why I’m hoping that “Entrepreneuring’s” “Carol” joins the team.
Not because of “Lorraine’s” nerves, but because without “Carol”,
it’s just me against those two techies.
Now I know how Saint George felt when he met up
with the dragon.
Stay tuned for more details…
after the movie.
Love, as always,
Pete
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