June 7, 1991
Dear Everyone:
I spent two glorious, fun-filled days in
Gaviota
this week. For those of you
who are not up on California geography, Gaviota (population 94,
Elevation 150) is roughly halfway between Santa Barbara and Buellton.
How do you get to this particular spot in the
middle of nowhere? First you fly
a jet from Oakland to LAX. Then
you walk to another part of the terminal and get on the cutest little
JetStream, maximum capacity: 18; 20, if you include the pilot and
copilot, which I like to do, if only to be polite.
This baby is so small that my
carry-on tote bag had to be “checked” and stowed in the luggage
compartment.
I was in row 3, with a lovely view of the
propeller. Once we were airborne,
the pilot went through the usual spiel: Nearest
exit (within arm’s reach); ETA (roughly twice as long as it took to get
from the gate to the runway: ½ hour); weather and time at destination
(pretty much the same as it is in LA); cabin pressure/oxygen masks
(“Shucks, folks, we're just taking a little hop to Santa Barbara.
Y'all won't need those.”)
At Santa Barbara, you rent a car and drive up to
Gaviota. I barely needed to ask
directions. “I'm going to
Gaviota.” “Of course you are,”
the woman replied. Why else would
a Compite be in Santa Barbara? She
drew the directions on the map and told me how long it would take to get
there (30 minutes).
Everyone in Santa Barbara knows about the Gaviota
Gas Plant. It's there because of
the Pt Arguello
oil field.
History. Once
upon a time (we’re talking of the late ‘60’s here), some Company
geologists were doing some exploratory drilling off the coast of
California, near Pt Arguello. They'd
pretty much done what they were supposed to do, but they were a little
ahead of schedule and a little under budget, so they figured, what the
hell, let's drill a little more. So
they drilled a little further than they'd planned and they hit the
Monterey Formation.
Back before there were XXX companies, or even
people on the planet, the Monterey Formation contained hydrocarbons
(oil). However, the Monterey
formation also contained some microscopic organisms that like to eat
oil. These little
hydrocarbon-munching beasties had long ago nibbled their way through the
Monterey Formation until it contained nothing but hydrocarbon leftovers
(sometimes called magnetite).
Consequently, geologists didn't pay much attention
to the Monterey Formation. They
also overlooked the fact that these little beasties are very particular
about where they live. They like
it warm. Onshore California is
warm. Offshore California isn't
(relatively speaking, from a microscopic beasty’s point of view).
So, when these geologists drilled into the Monterey
Formation, they hit the one thing they weren't expecting to find:
Oil.
Unfortunately, at roughly the same time in history,
Union Oil inadvertently drilled through a fault line and the ensuing oil
came up the pipe, hit the fault line and spread itself all over the
Southern California Beaches thus making many people very unhappy. And
so, the moratorium on offshore drilling began. (Today, oil companies
spend more time looking for fault lines than they do for oil, thus
keeping all those geohazard survey companies employed.)
So, the Company geologists put their Pt Arguello
information into a cabinet marked “Secret Stuff -- Keep Out” and quietly
ran seismic surveys of the area from time to time.
And waited for the Carter
Administration to put its foot in it, Middle East-wise, which set off
the Arab Oil Embargo, which suddenly made it advisable to open up
offshore drilling again.
And, when the right block came up for leasing,
Company plunked down $333,000,000, and started drilling and soon
announced that they'd discovered the biggest field since Prudhoe Bay
(Alaska). This was quite a few
years ago. But it takes time to
develop the field and build the plant to process the oil once you get it
out of the ground.
The Gaviota Gas Plant started building in 1985.
They should have gone online
several years ago. But the
environmentalists and the County of Santa Barbara have been throwing
lawsuits and contradictory permit requirements and newly minted
regulations and chicken feathers (and anything else they can think of)
in the way to keep the plant, and the oilfield, from starting up.
Now, after all this time, they
are going to start up and
“Wayne”, the guy in charge of administrative services at the plant,
decided that now would be a good time to fix the dreadful mess their
file system is in--before things start to roll.
Which explains why I spent two glorious, fun-filled
days in Gaviota: Reviewing their
filing situation. In a word:
Hopeless, but not serious.
A classic example of
over-specialization. Virtually
every new document that has come in to be filed in the last six years
has been placed in a separate folder.
Example: File
# 1047 – “Personnel, Facial Hair Policy”.
One piece of paper, outlining the Company Policy that doesn’t
allow “facial Hair” for men. (It
seems that Safety Regulations require that you be able to don a gas mask
at any moment and a beard would interfere with its working properly.)
File # 1047.1 -- :Personnel, Facial Hair Policy,
Exceptions”. One piece of paper:
Somebody didn't want to shave.
Add to this the fact that the 800 series was set
aside for “Employee Affairs” at the same time that the 1000 series was
set aside for “Personnel”, which is the same thing.
Three (3) different places to
look for Price, Waterhouse. And a
whole, separate set of files for Company Pipeline.
At first, I (mentally) blamed the succession of
file clerks who didn't seem to understand that you don't have to make up
a new folder every time a new piece of paper comes into the file room.
But then I attended a Staff
Meeting and one of the men mentioned that they had set up the file
system before they had
anything to file. Then,
everything became clear. They
weren't so much making up folders all the time as looking for something
to place in folders that were already there.
Rule #1: Never
set up a file until you have something to put into it.
Rule #2: Never
let an engineer set up a filing system. They're
too literal minded. They think
“square pegs in square holes; round pegs in round holes“.
The key to a file structure is
simplicity: “Just file them all
under ‘pegs’”.
I've seen this before.
Once, when some guys in Design
and Construction set up their file system, they even had a number
especially set aside just in case they'd ever need to make up a folder
for “Construction, Miscellaneous construction projects, Picnic tables“.
When I get finished streamlining Gaviota's files,
they won't need half the space and time that they're using now, which is
good, because once the plant starts going, they're going to need twice
as much as they have now.
Movie review of the week.
Soapdish -- don't
wait. This one is worth full
price. Especially
Kevin Kline's
performance. "Jeannie" and I were
still laughing what we got home.
Love, as always,
Pete
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