August 7, 1991
Dear Everyone:
“Auntie Em! Auntie Em!
There's no place like
home!”
Too true. There's
nothing like getting away from it all to make you appreciate it all,
whatever “it” is.
“Jeannie's” ducks were overjoyed at her return
(Imagine! A whole
week without freshly bought
stale bread from the Earth Mother Goddess.) as was her cat.
At least for the first day back.
You know how cats are:
Aloof, independent, terribly
self-sufficient, unless there's something they want from you.
Monroe (“Jeannie's” cat)
generally ignores and avoids her
unless “Jeannie” happens to be on the phone.
For some reason, Monroe can't
stand it when somebody's on
the telephone; her need for attention suddenly skyrockets.
As soon as you're off the phone,
of course, she wants nothing more to do with you.
Speaking of phones, our Area Code is changing in
just under 4 weeks. Effective 2
September 1991, Alameda and Contra Costa counties will change
from 415 to 510.
This means that our phone numbers
will be as follows:
“Jeannie”: 1-510-555-7334
Pete:
1-510-555-1559
You might want to write this down somewhere for
future reference. There will be a
grace period of 5 months for people to get used to the change.
Until 27 January 1992, using the
old Area Code should work; but you might as well start using the new
one.
The reason for this change is, of course, too many
new people, businesses, fax machines, cellular phones, computer data
lines, etc. and not enough numbers to go around.
There's talk in my department
about people getting either PC’s or “dumb” terminals to use in their
homes so they can take more work home with them.
Whether you get a PC with a
modem, or just a terminal to connect with the mainframe, you still need
an extra phone line in your home, unless you want to tie up your
personal phone for hours at a time. That's
a lot of phone numbers.
By the Way, “Jeannie's”
phone number will remain the
same, but her address is
going to be changing as she moves into her new home.
She's in the process of buying a
condominium. Further details as
they come in.
On the office front…
Things are fairly quiet around here since I got
back. The Mythical Records
Management Study has become less of a myth and more of a pain in the
neck. The Study Team keeps coming
back to us with things for us to “review and comment on”, which, of
course, takes time away from our “regular” work.
When I got in Monday morning and
began digging my way through my In Box, I found two “R&C’s” waiting for
me. When I hadn't responded by
Tuesday morning (I had been told by someone here that the R&C period was
over for these particular items), I got a phone call from our Manager,
“Ken”, asking me to fax my
comments to the Study Team where they were meeting in Alamo.
I sent him 17 pages.
One genuine advantage to the “Mythical” Records
Management Study is that it tends to keep “Alma” out of our hair.
She is
not a member of the Study
Team (ignore her if she tells you she is), but she
is a “consultant” to the
Team, which allows her to sit in on all of their meetings (so far).
Since “Alma” is convinced that
the Team can't possibly function without her, and since the Team meets 3
days each week for the next month or so, we don't see a lot of “Alma”
and that suits us just fine.
In other news…
Welcome to
the family, “Marge” and “Heloise”!!!
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |