January 21, 1992
Dear Everyone:
Every now and again, Company arranges for someone
to do a "Brown Bag" presentation of general interest at lunchtime, for
anyone who wants to attend. Subjects
range from personal matters, like "Coping with Stress" and "Better
Parenting" (when did being a parent become a verb?) to recycling and the
environment to pipelines. Whatever
someone wants to talk about and someone wants to listen.
They are not particularly fussy.
Last Wednesday, a Brown Bag was scheduled for an
outside consultant to come in and talk about "How to Improve Your
Memory". According to the notice
that was sent around in advance, the average person uses less than 10%
of their available memory.
However,
last Wednesday was the day the “Freddie Johnson” made his big
announcement to the employees at large about improving profits by
cutting jobs (a.k.a. “Freddie's” Bombshell or--because of the
continental breakfast that was served in San Francisco--The Last
Breakfast). It's not that
everyone forgot about the
"How to Improve Your Memory" presentation; it's just that everyone
decided to go out to lunch and talk about “Freddie's” Bombshell instead.
So, they've rescheduled the memory improvement
Brown Bag for tomorrow. “Miranda”
and I are planning on going, which is why I'm writing my weekly letter
on a Tuesday. It's the only
lunchtime available this week.
In so far, this is one of those weeks where you are
busy as a beaver all day and then, at the end of the day, you look at
your "Things To Do" list and ask yourself, "What the hell have I been
doing all day?" Because nothing
on the list is checked off.
For example: I'm working on something and the phone
twitters.
(Phones don't "ring" anymore; they twitter or
clatter or beat.) So I picked up
the phone and it's “Crystal” in Oklahoma:
"’Hugh's’ PC just did something weird and now it says it's
‘disabled, please wait’. What
should we do?" This is right up
there with the time “Jeannie” called from Oregon and wanted to know why
the red light on the front of her VCR was flashing.
What makes these people think that
I know anything more than
they do? So I ask “Crystal” in
Oklahoma a few somewhat-intelligent questions and tell her to try
something and, God help us, it works and “Crystal” goes away happy,
thinking that I'm some kind of a Miracle Worker.
And there goes about 15 minutes.
And the
next time she has a problem,
guess who she's going to call.
Then Gary calls from New Orleans.
(You have to admit, my circle of
friends has expanded, if only geographically.)
He wants to know why a report was
sent to Eileen when it should have been sent to Jim.
Even though I had nothing to do
with sending out the report, I can answer his question and there goes
another 20 minutes.
You can see a pattern forming here, can't you?
The reason I can't get any work
done is that I'm too good at my job.
Another STG (Significant Time Guzzler) is training.
Every time I start to do
something that “Miranda” doesn't know how to do yet, I stop and tried to
get her (if she's not busy with something else) so I can show her how to
do it. She still has only pieces
of the puzzle; but, gradually, the Big Picture is starting to come
together.
In other news…
We have had a reprieve.
Originally, we was supposed to
move to the 6th Floor over at “225 Beelzebub” Street near the
end of March. This would mean
being closer to the Forms people who are, after all, part of "Forms and
Records Management", which is our official name.
But it would also mean giving up
our individual offices here on the 30th Floor at 575
“Mirable” Street.
Now,
PM&S "Pillsbury,
Madison and Sutro" aka. Putter Mutter and Stutter,) has decided that
they don't want to vacate the 6th Floor at 225 after all, and
it will be at least 6 months
before we can move to an alternate floor.
So we’re "stuck" here with our nice, big offices.
“Ken Crow”, our manager, has decided to move over
here to be closer to Records Management and is looking for office space
on or near our floor. This would
be nice. Let the Forms people do
the trotting across the street every time they meet the boss for a
change.
“Marshall” and “Glinda” were up here for the
weekend. I didn't get to see much
of them, except for dinner Saturday night, because my car was in the
shop and I had to stay near the phone in case they called to ask for
more money. What should have been
a simple 60,000-mile checkup, plus smog certificate, escalated into
open-heart surgery because something called a timing belt needed to be
replaced. On the other hand, as
long as he had everything opened up, “Steve”, the mechanic, replaced the
water pump at no extra charge, since he was in that neighborhood anyway.
Total damages:
$720.70, which, miraculously, I
had in my checking account because of something else that I turned out
not to need.
It all comes out in the wash.
Love, as always,
Pete
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