March 31, 2005
Dear Everyone:
About a month or two ago, our manager and supervisor decided that all of the people in my group, Global Records Consulting (GRC), should get together for two days to learn more about the official company project development and execution process and, oh by the way, each other. I won’t say much more about the process because it’s proprietary; and I wouldn’t want to risk someone dropping a reference to it while standing in line at the grocery store, just when a spy from Exxon Intergalactic happens to be standing nearby.
This will be the first time that all members of the
group are actually in the same place at the same time.
From time to time, California people have been in “Hobby” and
“Hobby” people have been in California, but never all of the people all
of the time. I actually met
one or two of the “Hobby” people at the
ARMA International Conference in
So, many things have been planned to make it a
truly “bonding” experience.
First of all, the
Breakfast and lunch will be provided and we’re all going out to dinner after work on Tuesday. We’ll spend all day Tuesday and Wednesday going over the five phases of the process. And so everyone will feel part of the group, our supervisor has given each of us “homework” assignments. Tons of homework which has to be read, understood and distilled down to a half-dozen bullet points. Be prepared to answer any questions that arise.
My assignments are things like “how to give a DRB presentation in phase 1”. (DRB stands for Decision Review Board. This is generally a group of managers whose job it is to tear your project apart as brutally as possible.) Also, luckily, a part of phase 2 that concerns training. This is something I actually know a little about.
Also, to make it “fun” and provide some background on each of us, we’ve all been given a PowerPoint presentation to fill out on ourselves. Most of us didn’t realize that we had this piece of “homework” until the facilitator sent out an email asking for our copies prior to the meetings. That’s when I took a look at this presentation. It has eight slides:
Name (fairly easy)
Educational background (again, not too difficult)
RIM (Records & Information Management) work
experience (uh…)
RIM project experience (yikes!)
Languages, travel, cultural background
(double-yikes)
Other useful stuff
Three “fun facts” about yourself, two truthful and one untruthful
Oh, my goodness. This started me thinking. And the more I thought, the more things I started coming up with. Like the time I lead a team of contractors to reproduce over 20,000 xxx files back in the mid-80’s. Followed by the merger of all the Company-Other Company xxx and area files. Those two projects alone earned me enough money in overtime to buy a fur coat and put a down payment on a condo.
I’ve been working in Records & Information
Management since the day I started at the XXX Company of
And I can still say “Please”, “Thank you”, “You’re welcome”, and “Good morning” in Arabic.
As for the “three fun facts, two truth and one lie”, that is supposed to have everyone guessing which is the lie. I already know what I’m going to say. I’ll tell you what they are in the next Letter. Which might not be next week. I’ll be returning from “Hobby” on Thursday, but may not feel up to writing after the trip. We’ll just wait and see.
And yes, “Frankie”, I did finally figure out how to work Mail Merge on my computer and put in your new address.
Love, as always,
Pete
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