December 3, 1993
Dear Everyone:
Heads up, Ashland people! We will
not be going to the
Shakespeare Festival in June as originally planned.
Instead, we will (hopefully) be
going sometime in August. (I say
"hopefully" because I don't know if we will be able to successfully
exchange the tickets; the plays could already be sold out.)
Why the change in plans?
Three weeks after I sent off the order for tickets (and a check for just
under $1000) to Ashland, “Jeannie” and “Alice”, more or less
simultaneously, cried: "But I
can't go in June!" Different
reasons in each case, but the upshot is the same.
Evidently, I was supposed to have known this long before I ordered the
tickets back at the beginning of November. All I can say is, their faith in
my clairvoyance is touching, but sadly misplaced.
What this boils down to is that I'm sending the tickets (which arrived
in the mail yesterday) back to try and exchange them for one of two
weeks in August, those two weeks being acceptable to “Jeannie” and
“Alice” (and “Frankie”, too; we checked).
Further details as they become available.
In other news…
Hurtling towards the end of the year, having passed
Warp Factor Six
several weeks ago, I'm trying to get some Projects finished up.
Destruction Approval Tracking Project
We've had our final Guidance Review Team meeting, but still have to come
up with some results that we can communicate to the world at large. Having spent over a
year-and-a-half on the Project, we'd like to think we accomplished
something tangible. We just need
some "facts" to back it up.
Also, there's the pesky little detail of documenting the process so that
someone doesn't have to go out and reinvent the wheel five years from
now. This is complicated slightly
by another little Project that
I was handed about a month ago.
For years now, the people who own the boxes in the Records Centers have
complained that it does them no good to release the boxes for
destruction because the “Tiddly” Department promptly slaps holds on them
to prevent them from being destroyed. (“Tiddly”
has been known to put a Hold on a box of Christmas ornaments that
someone stored at “Livermore” during the off-season, even though the
owner had "released" it for destruction.)
People said, "If ‘Tiddly’ wants to keep the boxes, ‘Tiddly’
should pay for them."
To which “Tiddly” replied: "Not!"
Now, after years of holding out (pun intended) against paying for boxes
that are only being held for “Tiddly” purposes, the head of the
department suddenly did an about-face and said that, within certain
parameters, “Tiddly” would pay
for these boxes.
This means that the owners are going to be eager to release as many
boxes as they can, since “Tiddly” will pick up the storage costs. “Tiddly”, on the other hand, is
not eager to look at any boxes
that are still in what they call Open “Tiddly” Years, since they know
they're going to hold them anyway. The
owners want to review everything.
“Tiddly” wants to review only
boxes in Closed “Tiddly” Years. This
means running "parallel" Destruction Batches, something that didn't
exist until (literally) yesterday. And
that means rewriting the instructions that I wrote back in April.
Once we get
that done, and (praying no more surprises) publish our Results, the
Project will be officially completed.
Remind me to drive a stake through its heart, just in case.
Replacing CRMIS
We met with our Guidance Review Team yesterday and made a
recommendation. I know you've all
been waiting for this with bated breath, so I won't hold you in suspense
any longer. The winner is…
There, now you can all relax.
After we did our presentation to the Guidance Team, we left the room while they conferred. Coming out of huddle, they told us that:
-
They thought we'd done a very fine job.
-
They agreed with the recommendation.
-
Just as a formality, we should come up with a Proposal for upper management, including:
-
A Cost Benefit Analysis
-
An Estimated Return on Capital Employed
-
An Estimated Rate of Return
-
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
-
(just checking to see if you were paying attention.)
However, we don't have to come up with all this (and some other details) before Christmas, so we really can relax, at least for a little bit.
I'm hoping to get my outdoor Christmas lights up this weekend. Last weekend it
rained all weekend. In the
middle of November. Imagine that!
Love, as always,
Pete
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