June 16, 2010
Dear Everyone:
“When you’re up to your armpits in
alligators, it’s
sometimes difficult to remember that your main objective is to drain the
swamp.”
I don’t know who said that (and neither does my
copy of
Bartlett’s Familiar
Quotations), but it’s true.
Last Friday, I put the final, final, really, really
FINAL touches on my simulation of the Module 5 Lab for the
document
management system. This
involved recording new voiceovers for about three existing slides and
two new ones. With that the
simulation was complete (until feedback from the various testers, at
least.)
I had planned to spend the first part of this week
working on the next Lab simulation:
How to Modify Existing Documents and Let’s Look at Optional
Properties. But then my
other main project, the decommissioning of a bunch of applications
suddenly turned all Godzilla on me:
The Project Manager wanted me to review every document the team
had assembled to date and advise which ones they need to keep and for
how long.
She also wanted a “Destruction Plan” in place for
each application. I started
on a “form” that could be used for each application.
Then I realized that the data archived for one little application
in Singapore had actually become eligible for destruction.
The original application had been shut down in May of last year
and the retention period for this particular set of data was one year.
So as of this month, it was eligible for a Destruction Review.
I decided to use it as a “test case” for a
Destruction Review, one that we could use as a “template” for future
data. As I was filling out
the form, I realized that there are no instructions for how to fill out
the form. So I started
drafting instructions and that’s as far as I got last night.
The Project Manager had scheduled a “special” meeting this
morning, which is when I remembered about reviewing each and every
document and email message stored in their electronic “room”.
I blocked out all morning tomorrow to work on it,
which is what prevented the Project Manager from scheduling another
meeting for tomorrow; the earliest she could set it up was for 1:00-3:00
tomorrow afternoon. She even
graciously decided to hold the meeting in my building, so I wouldn’t
have to drive to her building; but it meant I had to find a room in my
building that we could use.
Huddle rooms and conference rooms are at a premium everywhere these
days.
In the meantime, there’s still the document
management system and the two guys I normally meet with every Wednesday
afternoon to go over what I have accomplished since the previous week.
The whole document management system group is embroiled in a
major upgrade this week and next.
I proposed that we cancel this afternoon’s meeting, since they
were so busy and so was I and they thankfully agreed.
I had thought I would spend all day this coming
Friday working on the next Module.
But “Jeannie” reminded me on the phone this afternoon that I had
said that I could take Friday as a Vacation Day.
“Alice” is still visiting and our niece, “Liza”, is coming out
from Berkeley.
So what the hey!
Family comes first and I can work on Module 6 in between Godzilla
meetings next week.
Love, as always,
Pete
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