August 22, 1990
Dear Everyone:
I got back from vacation to discover that I had
been “Eldonwalled”. In some
small way, this was my own fault.
Last year, we went to an all-day meeting with the people who sell
TAB Products (filing supplies and equipment) at their office on Potrero
Street. While touring their
facility, we happened to notice that some of the people who work there
had interesting things mounted on the walls around their desks.
Wall-mounted file holders, shelves and desk trays
and such, so that you can keep your work space (i.e., desk top) cleared
for action. “Carla” and
“Alma”, the two most interested in equipment, were quite taken with
this, while the rest of us just forgot all about it.
Well, God knows how many months ago, I asked “Alma”
for authorization to order some stacking desk trays.
Too much going on, too many opportunities for Active Files
projects to get mixed up with Destruction Batches and Retention
Schedules and just too many chances of things getting buried on my desk.
I felt a need to organize.
Well, that set “Alma” off.
It seems that “Carla” had gotten hold of a brochure of this
wall-mounted stuff which is put out by Eldon.
(“Carla” gets five times as much junk mail as the rest of use
because she actually sends away for it.)
“Alma” decided that each of us would get the “Eldonwall” system
for our work stations.
Each of us has a desk, surrounded on three sides by
room dividers, usually with attached “overhead” cabinet for books,
supplies, etc. with a fluorescent lamp built into the bottom of it.
“Eldonwall” consists of a horizontal bar which mounts onto the
room divider by means of some clamps.
Then the “components” hook onto the bar.
They’ve got all kinds of things to attach:
desk trays, shelves to hold color-coordinated calendars, tape
dispensers, staplers, pencil holders, “hot-files” boxes to hold books or
folders, etc., etc., etc.
In fact, by the time the saleswoman had finished
compiling wish lists for all of us (“Melanie” was the only one who
abstained), we had an order in place for over $1200.
This is where it got stuck.
“Alma” typed up the order and sent it over to “Chris”, our
manager, to sign. “Chris”
comes from auditing and couldn’t understand why we needed all these desk
accessories to do our job when we’d been doing it all along without
them. “Alma” couldn’t
understand why, as long as there was still money in the budget, she
couldn’t spend it on whatever she wanted.
Impasse.
In the meantime, my desk was still a mess.
I went down to Drug Barn one weekend, plunked down about $10 of
my own money for some plastic stacking trays, took them into the office
and straightened up my desk.
With that, I was happy and more or less forgot about the great Eldon
battle.
Eventually, “Alma” trimmed a few “non-essentials”
from the list and got “Chris” to approve it.
Then it was weeks before the parts began coming in, one dribble
at a time. Evidently, the
last of the pieces arrived while I was on vacation.
This is actually the fun part.
You try hanging desk trays over here, then try them over there.
How about hanging the phone directories and dictionary here?
How about here?
Great, now where does the phone go?
Ultimately, you wind up with a
beautifully cleared off desk…
next to a remarkably cluttered
wall.
This is known in the vernacular as “verticalizing”
the mess. It doesn’t go
away, you just hang it on the wall.
Nouveau art.
In other news…
Having survived vacation, I needed to clean up my
apartment. I especially
needed to re-“nest” my luggage (each piece fits inside the next larger
piece) so that I could stop tripping over them.
This set off a cleaning frenzy which lasted about six hours last
Saturday, by which time the carpets had been “potpourri-ed” and
vacuumed, everything put away, the bathrooms scrubbed, laundry laundered
(note: If you happen to buy
one of these T-shirts with the foil designs on it, wash it in
cold water).
I even polished the “marble” in both bathrooms, something I do
every three years whether it needs it or not.
Having satisfied my domestic needs, “Jeannie” and I
went to a movie and lunch on Sunday.
I paid for the movie and popcorn, she paid for lunch.
I came out ahead; you don’t have to tip for popcorn.
The move:
Flatliners.
Medical students push it to the edge to see if they can “die”
(flat line on the EEG) and be revived by their accomplices to report on
whether or not there really is life after death.
Concept: good.
Execution: dumb.
Unless the popcorn is
exceptionally good, save your money.
Love, as always,
Pete
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