September 11, 1991
Dear Everyone:
Whump! That's pretty much
how it felt when “Alma” dropped her bombshell last Thursday.
Two bombshells, actually:
The first was to announce the R&A
that I received (see letter dated 9/6/91); the second was to announce
that “Rowena Chandler” is leaving Records Management.
“Rowena” is in Seventh Heaven about this.
She's been trying to get out of
Records Management for years. Now
she's been tagged to be one of 6-8 ”Quality Coaches” for the Corp
Comptroller’s department when we start “Continuous Quality Improvement”
training next year.
“CQI”, as it's affectionately known, is the latest
panacea that management has bought into, thinking if they can just find
the magic button and push it, all of their problems (like unhappy
employees and dissatisfied customers) will go away to Never-Never Land
and we’ll all live happily ever after.
So that was Thursday morning.
After the Staff Meeting, “Rowena” told me to march myself into
“Alma's” office and tell her that I was “willing” to replace “Rowena”
provided they could find someone to replace me.
Naturally, “Alma” wasn't in her office, but I
eventually found her and "threw my hat into the ring“.
From later conversations, I
gather there weren't that many other hats there.
What “Rowena” does (and I'll be doing) is keep
CRMIS, our mainframe computer system, running and working with the
Records Centers and trying to keep up with “Ashley” on the conversion of
the current system into the new system, which IDI hasn't written yet.
In theory, I'm “Rowena's” backup
for CRMIS and, in fact, I DO know a lot of things about it.
But not everything. As for
IDI…heaven help us. So I'm going
to be stuffing my head with what's in “Rowena’s” head that the next 4-5
weeks.
And that's why I'm suddenly in “Livermore”, doing
“Designated User Training” (please don't ask me what that means) for
CUSA Travel Card. And that's why
I'm suddenly going to “Hobby” and “Oklahoma City” the first week of
October. And taking classes next
week that I didn't even know existed last week.
Last Friday, I made out a list of ALL my projects
and “ key job responsibilities” and “Alma” and I went over it to decide
who should handle what I've been doing to free up my time so I could
learn “Rowena’s” job. I kept
exactly two Active Files projects, including the one in Point Arguello,
so I'll also be going to Southern California next month.
I think it's finally time for me
to start looking into “ frequent flier” mileage.
Some things “Alma” is going to reassign to existing
personnel and others will wait until the “ the new person” arrives.
This person, whom all referred to
as “Daniel” (because he/she is walking into a lions’ den), will
officially replace “Rowena” as one warm body assigned to Records
Management.
All of this is wonderful because it means that I'm
essentially trading a two-person-per-day job for a one-person-per-day
job. I might actually get to go
home on time and do my exercises again. My
bike is currently at 9030 miles, but I haven't had a chance to sit down
with a map to figure out if I've “bicycled” my way out of China yet.
In addition, I'll get to do loads of challenging
computer work, so that'll be lots of fun.
And working on only two Active Files projects at a time will be
heavenly after trying to juggle 5 plus a full-time job.
All in all it looks good.
Love, as always,
Pete
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