March 23, 2006
Dear Everyone:
Things are very busy at work these days. We’re working feverishly to complete the “Super Cabinet” project in the document management system. This was a management decision to avoid costs associated with the number of regular cabinets they currently have in the system.
All of the various departments are going to be combined into one cabinet with a simplified folder structure, based on the company retention schedule, which defines how long certain types of records need to be kept. Originally, we had to have it all done by the end of last year. Then we got a reprieve and didn’t have to have it finished until the end of the first quarter of this year.
Caution: Dates in calendar are closer than they appear to be. The end of the first quarter is a week from tomorrow. Then we got another reprieve that said we could sort of, kind of, slide a little way into April, as long as we’re really, really finished by the 15th.
Of course, we couldn’t really get started on moving all these documents around because management kept changing its collective mind on what the folder structure should actually look like. Nevertheless, we started “mapping” the data to its new locations a few weeks ago. At first, we charged off to the right, making up new folders based on the current folder structure in whichever cabinet we were working on.
But then we stopped and said, “Hold on. Don’t all these new sub-folders and sub-sub-folders kind of muck up the SIMPLIFIED folder structure that management mandated?” So we did an about-face and charged off to the left, deleting sub-sub-folders almost as quickly as we set them up. (Actually, it was the support technician assigned to assist us who was doing the creating and deleting of folders, based on what we told him at the time. We’ll call him “Siegmund”.)
But then, after a while, we said, “Hold on. Dumping all of these documents from so many different departments into the same folder is going to be awfully confusing to a lot of people. After all, there’s the Leadership Team (LT). But then some of the departments call their top management LT as well. Who’s going to know which LT is which?”
So we did another about-face and charged off to the right again, with “Siegmund” following behind, picking up after us. This has been so much fun. Too bad it has to end in a week or two.
Meanwhile, movies.
During the
Academy Awards
ceremony, there were several nominations for something called
Mrs.
Henderson Presents.
We hadn’t noticed it when it came out because it happened right before
Christmas when we
were up in
Mrs. Henderson Presents starts with a funeral and ends with a dance. It is “inspired” by a true event. Which is Hollywood-ese for “based very, very loosely on something that really happened to a real person a really long time ago.” There really was a Laura Henderson and a Vivian Van Damm.
Mrs. Henderson, an Oscar-nominated Judi Dench, has just been widowed. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Widowhood for Dummies in 1937 and she’s not quite sure what she should do now that she doesn’t have a Mr. Henderson anymore. A friend offers advice as to suitable hobbies, quickly lost on Mrs. Henderson, whose free spirit doesn’t take well to embroidery.
So she buys the
Windmill Theater
in
With a vengeance.
There are lots of naked girls, but done ever so
tastefully. This is
Last weekend, we decided to try something different: V for Vendetta. This movie stars Natalie Portman and she pretty much carries the film by herself. Her costar is a Guy Fawkes mask. John Hurt and Stephen Rea are in there, too.
The story is set in the not-too-distant future, in
which
Enter the character who goes by the letter “V”. He has assumed the guise of Guy Fawkes, a man who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot in the early 17th Century. The Gunpowder Plot was a plan to blow up the Parliament building, preferably while Parliament was in session and King James I in attendance. A lot of people were unhappy with their government back then, too.
Plenty of people were involved in the Gunpowder Plot, but Fawkes was the only one who paid the price: He was hung, drawn and quartered. And the date, November 5th became a national holiday, celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Lots of fireworks.
“V” decides to get the country’s attention by blowing up Old Bailey, the prison where Guy Fawkes was convicted, to the accompaniment of the 1812 Overture, with fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks.
“V” rescues Portman’s character “Evey”, then admits that he plans to hold her captive for a year to protect himself. Evey gets away. Evey get caught by the government. Evey gets tortured. Evey gets her head shaved. Evey finds courage. Evey finds “V” again. In the meantime, Stephen Rea pokes around finding the clues that lead to the revelation of just who and what “V” really is.
Also, lots and lots of fireworks. No hankies. And, as “Jeannie” pointed out afterward, plot holes you could drive Mrs. Henderson’s Rolls Royce through. Nevertheless, fun. Pick whichever one you want. Or take in both.
Love, as always,
Pete
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