December 16, 2009
Dear Everyone:
I have just about completed my Holiday shopping,
which is pretty good considering I only started this Monday.
I know exactly what I’m going to get for “Jeannie” for her
birthday, which is this Saturday; I only have to figure out where to get
it. I still have to wrap,
package and ship things, but I’ll have a little time after work tomorrow
and Friday. So I’m
reasonably certain that things will arrive on time at various locations.
One of the things I got done last weekend was the
annual charitable donations.
I’m a little better organized in this than in previous years.
Now that the
IRS requires a physical mailing address for all
recipients, I have all the names and addresses in a spreadsheet.
So I can just go down the list, find the appropriate envelopes in
the “beggars box” and dump all the extras into the recycle bin.
Certain people will be relieved to know that
Habitat for Humanity
and Maine Coon Adoptions received their usual contributions.
As for work, my decommissioning project jumped into
high gear this week with the realization that some forms had not been
sent out for signature, or had not been signed yet.
I’m not sure how I wound up being the person in charge of the
actual mailing out and receiving back of emails and forms.
I’m really only supposed to be the
records retention consultant.
But when the emailing of the forms came up, apparently my
organizational skills leaped into action and now I’m the “go to” person
for it. Fortunately, the
project’s manager starts her vacation tomorrow and doesn’t return until
a week after I do, so things should remain calm for now.
The other part of my current work, the IM Academy,
has kept me nicely busy.
They decided to hold an additional class this month for the
SharePoint
for Power Users class because there were so many people piling up on the
waiting list. So, in
addition to one class in “Hobby” yesterday and today, there’s another
class in “Pleasanton” today and tomorrow.
And we’re working on the Computer Based Training
(CBT) for the Power Users.
One person is cranking out the individual exercises.
Another co-worker and I are going over the exercises that have
already been recorded and drafting the voice-over scripts to go along
with them. This involves
going through each exercise by itself.
Then watching the recorded exercise and indicating at which point
a voice-over should come in.
Then we watch a video recording of an actual class
to pick up any additional “nuggets” of information that the Instructors
just happened to have mentioned because someone asked a question that
sparked a response. We hope
to have enough of this done by the end of this week so that the
Instructors can go over our drafts and decide how much of it they think
is really necessary.
It can be tricky when you know the material as well
as they do. They may think
something is glaringly obvious when it’s completely lost on a student.
Back in the day when I used to write procedures, I would always
ask the least experienced person in the group to “test drive” the
instructions. One time the
person came back to me and said, “Do you realize that you left out the
first 15 steps?”
No, I had made the (apparently erroneous)
assumption that the person reading the procedure would know how to get
to my starting point.
Remember: “Never assume.”
Programming note:
This Friday is my last day in the office for the rest of the
year. It’s really only two
weeks, but I’m really looking forward to some genuine “rest and
relaxation.” So no more
Letters until the first week in January.
Everyone have a
Merry Christmas, Happy
Hanukkah,
Happy Kwanza, Happy Whatever, and a Safe and Happy
New Year.
Love, as always,
Pete
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