February 26, 1998
Dear Everyone:
Last week, in an effort to get something critically
important done before the weekend, I took the extreme measure of
“closing my door”. You may
wonder how one can close a door when one is occupying a cubicle.
Actually, it’s quite easy (notice I didn’t say effective).
I went out to the shipping dock where they have
many wonderful toys, including a huge roll of heavy brown wrapping
paper. They seldom use it
for wrapping; but they often use it as packing material.
The roll is approximately 36” wide.
The entrance to my cubicle is approximately 34” wide.
Starting to get the picture?
I tore off a piece about 4 feet long and took it
back to one of the workrooms.
Then, using colored marking pens, I wrote the following:
“’A’ is working on BILLING for “Livermore” and “Hobby”.
Very important. Very
difficult. PLEASE do not
disturb.” The use of the
word BILLING is very important.
It indicates that what I was doing involved recovering our costs
for the month of February.
If we don’t recover our costs, the manager gets very cranky.
Then I taped the top edges of this plea for
non-interruption to the top of my cubicle walls on either side of the
entrance. Because the walls
are taller than I am, it was relatively easy for me to duck under this
“curtain” whenever I needed to come and go.
Taller people didn’t have it so easy.
And it worked fairly well at reminding people that I was working
on something that had to be done and that I shouldn’t be interrupted
until the “curtain” came down.
Of course, there’s always someone who figures it
doesn’t apply to them because it’s so much easier to ask me than to look
it up for themselves. These
are the same people you find on the freeway, floating along at five
miles under the speed limit in the fast lane.
Nevertheless, I was finally able to create the 80+
queries needed in
Microsoft Access
to generate the billing files for both “Livermore” and “Hobby”, with
separate charges for Large versus Standard boxes.
I’ve only been trying to get this done since last year.
I was so pleased with this little triumph that I
declared the weekend a “work-free zone” and never even went near the
office. Instead, I unpacked
nearly all of my books from the move last November.
And it’s only February!
And “Jeannie” and I went to see
L.A.
Confidential, which had disappeared several months ago, but
which has miraculously reappeared in the wake of nine
Academy Awards
nominations. If it’s playing
in your area, move quickly.
It probably won’t last much longer than the first time around and is
worth catching.
Set in
Los Angeles some
time in the late Forties (judging by the costuming) to early Fifties
(constant references to a TV series that is clearly meant to be
Dragnet,
which debuted in 1952), it slowly unravels a mystery involving several
LAPD officers (including a marvelous
Kevin Spacey), a
very expensive hooker (Kim
Bassinger in a rare appearance since going bankrupt, getting married
and having a child), a
Howard Hughes-type
millionaire, a shoot-out at an all-night cafe, and a rape victim.
Not necessarily in that order.
Did I mention the missing heroin?
At one point, “Jeannie” leaned over and whispered,
“Are you as confused as I am?”
I haven’t seen anything this convoluted since
Chinatown.
Which is not to say that it didn’t all make perfect sense at the
end. It’s well written and
every actor put in a top rate performance, with no one out-shining
anyone else. Very much
ensemble casting. Very much
worth seeing so you’ll know who to root for at the awards ceremony next
month.
Love, as always,
Pete
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