January 14, 1994
Dear Everyone:
January. My annual New Year’s
Resolution, to leave work on time and go home and exercise, lasted a
whole week. Possibly a new
record.
January. This is when you sit
down and ask yourself the inevitable question:
Just what the hell did I
do all last year, anyway?
I know that I was busier than a
one-armed paper-hanger with hives, but did I
accomplish anything? And can
it be measured?
(We're into measuring everything
these days. You have to be able
to show how what you do follows the policy line up to the Chairman's
Strategy.)
Destruction
It took about a year and a half, but we did finally complete the
Improvement Project on the Annual Records Destruction Review.
It gobbled up 283.75 hours (of my
time) last year, but it's over now. The
documentation is completed and everything has been turned over to
“Livermore” to run in the future. From
now on, it really will be
"annual".
Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't still be involved in
Destruction. RACS will continue
to administer the policy. And
I'll go on answering questions and helping to make decisions.
I fully expect that my tombstone
will read, "Queen of Destruction", which will certainly baffle future
archaeologists for generations. (Whenever
an archaeologist can't fathom what something was used for, they say, "We
think it had religious significance.")
As for measures, we estimate an annual savings of $53,000, which is more
than I made last year, even with a bonus
and a watch.
Can you imagine being the
salesperson, getting the commission on that purchase?
"Hello,
QVC?
I'd like to order 42,500
wristwatches, please."
RMSEP
Records Management Software Evaluation Project.
Finished that one, too.
At least to the extent of making
the recommendation, which was as much as we were supposed to do.
We still have to make a
presentation to upper management, but that's a technicality.
“Daisy” estimates that, based on
the average cost of the existing system (CRMIS) per year, and the price
of purchasing, testing and implementing the new software, plus the cost
of the additional hardware, etc., etc., etc., the new system will pay
for itself in approximately 0.2 years (not including the intangibles
which are so slippery when you try to measure them).
This project ate only 249 hours. Personally,
I'm hoping we can catch our breath before plunging into the Testing,
Implementing and Conversion stage, particularly in light of the fact
that 75% of the proposed Team (“Jerry”, “Valerie” and
moi) are still working on another project to charge storage costs
for owner-released boxes to “Tiddly”. Besides,
I need time to think up another catchy acronym for the new project.
However, several people have
already asked me how soon they
can start using the new system; so we can't wait too long.
I got through most of the
courses I'd planned to take. You
always think you're going to have enough time for everything; but, of
course, you never do.
“Jeannie” and I saw a lot of movies, doing our part to help keep the
economy going. Speaking of which,
I have a gift certificate for Nordstrom's and my personal shopping
assistant (“Jeannie”) and I are planning to see what we can do with that
this weekend.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS. We got a new printer
installed yesterday. The Good
News: I get to play around with
lots of new fonts. The Bad News:
I haven't had time to figure out
how to get it to do envelopes, so it's back to manual for a while.
P.
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