June 29, 2006
Dear Everyone:
We’ve reached a bit of a milestone this week. Last week, I officially finished reading the Records and Information Management textbook that we’ve all been studying for about a year. This week, I officially mailed in my application to take the CRM Exam.
(I know you all know that CRM means Certified Records Manager.)
The application itself is only two pages long. They want to know your educational level, a high school diploma being the least they’ll accept. If you went to college, they want to know where and when. And a copy of your diploma, or transcripts from the school. Also, what is your current employer and job title.
And what were the last three jobs before that. (You can list additional jobs on an attachment, if necessary.) As it happens, over the years I’ve had three basic jobs in the past. Starting in 1973 and until 1987, I was an Information Technician. (An Information Technician is a cross between a glorified file clerk and a semi-automatic wild-goose-chaser.)
In October, 1987, I changed jobs to become a
Records Management Analyst, working for the Corporate Records Management
group. Then in 1994, I got
“traded” to the “Livermore”
That lasted until after the merger with “Another Company”, when the new manager of the IT group declared that she wouldn’t accept anyone in her group that didn’t come specifically from a technical background. Apparently people with the aptitude to pick this stuff up on their own need not apply. So our overall Manager, who had set up the new Global Records Consulting group placed me there.
So, officially, I’ve been in this present job for over three years. And the ICRM requirement is a minimum of three years with a Bachelor’s degree in anything. This is a slam dunk, right?
Not so fast. You need management level experience in four out of eight possible categories. This is the tricky part. I’ve never been a manager. But it’s all in the wording.
For instance, way back in 1990, I worked with some
programmers to “clone” an accounting application to use parts to
automatically bill owners for their boxes in the
Also in 1990, I used the table feature of WordPerfect to create a simple table that would allow me to sort the table by certain fields. In this way, I could quickly determine who had completed their Destruction Reviews and who hadn’t. That became “Designed and implemented the database to track Destruction Approvals for inactive records throughout the Corporation.”
Seriously, I have the experience.
I can honestly say that I had “full responsibility for managing a
large central file system” even though Company called me a Lead
Information Technician. If
all the XXX Files for the Western Region of the
Thus all week my boss and I have been honing the
Work Experience documentation.
The official deadline is “must be postmarked by July 1, 2006” in
order to qualify to take the test in November.
Three of us have been working to get our applications in on time.
One sent hers in last week as she is on vacation this week.
The other is currently working on a project in
This afternoon, when I took my envelope to the Post Office and placed it in the “Out of Town” slot, I became the last of us to send it in. That’s done. The worst that can happen now is they either reject one or more of us, or they request additional information. Either way, it’s a big load off our collective shoulders.
We’re wondering if the people at ICRM will notice that three of us all work for the same Team Leader.
In other news…
“Jeannie” and I are heading up to
Then on Wednesday, I’ll fly back and “Jeannie” will drive Mother’s car home, where it will become “Jeannie’s” car. “Jeannie’s” current car, Odin, the one I gave her two years ago, has become unsafe to drive and it doesn’t make sense to sink thousands of dollars into it to bring it up to snuff.
Everybody have a Happy and Safe Fourth of July!
Love, as always,
Pete
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