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1:09 AM - 03.02.05
Deadlines
I keep feeling as though I should have the theme from Goldfinger (James Bond) or The Untouchables (Elliot Ness) or Kung Fu (Kwai Chang Kane) or Shaft or Hawaii Five-O (book em Dan-o) or Magnum PI playing at work. Not for me mind - for the males I'm working with. All that Hollywood testosterone "undercover investigator" thing. Problem with that in this office, is that the testosterone rush is blocking a major chunk of what's going on from their view. In fact they are being manipulated by that element. Sort of suggests who the mastermind might be though - right?

Work was stop and go today. Weekly meeting at 10 seemed to go on forever. There is stringent legislation (sound like a broken LP record - vinyl disk for you dear diary since you're so young) with respect to how, where and how long certain data must be retained in this industry. This morning it was back to the - "well everyone will be able to decide for themselves what to keep and what to throw away" while referencing the laws of the company's home turf. Not. The condition for them to even conduct business here is contingent on their demonstating that they are compliant with Canadian law. It is even stipulated in the regulatory approvals they have secured to proceed. No arguments. It's the price of having the privilege to rake in huge sums of money to take back to the old country, boyo. Not such a bad exchange. The whole point of the legislation is to protect the health, wealth and safety of Canadians. That's why the laws exist and it shouldn't have to be explained ad nauseum.

After the meeting, I was wondering if it was just me being anal retentive a la Freud about it, but one of the permanent staff raised the same concerns with me shortly after. She pointed out a couple of very public court cases involving other international corporate citizens who have been made to pay out huge reparations by the courts for not doing due diligence. Same industry - different day. I had already shared some examples I've seen in other companies with her. Not confidential details or even company names - just the publicly reported information that has come out of such things. We talked a bit about one case that is getting major coverage in the newspapers right now as well. A lot of what we discussed had to be considered speculative, since we were just going by what has been reported, but each of us has enough background knowledge to read between the lines.

What also frustrated me was that my supervisor, not only did not dispel the discussion at the table, he even seemed to be in agreement with things that he has clearly explained otherwise in other client's offices. There was also dicussion of a "next step" process that would double the amount of time necessary to complete the work on my part of the project with less consistent results. In fact, without a retention schedule that process cannot even begin. Regardless of the feelings of some of the staff the data doesn't belong to them - it is the company's assets and its responsibility. Claiming ingnorance of the law will not be accepted by the courts, should it ever come to that. One of the rules in records management is to control points of ingress or egress of data. The reason is that companies lose track very quickly of what they do or do not have, if it is operated otherwise. Think of a public library with no checkout system or one where anyone off the street could come in and place material on the shelves or throw it away at whim. They wouldn't be able to function for very long that way. He also made a commitment for completion of work for me that is only possible if I skip lunch, work late and come in over the weekend. All things I've been told not to do, even though that has been the drill since I've started here. Well except for the weekend work, no secuity card isn't always a bad thing I guess. There were several issues I raised with him the past couple of days that I wanted to go through with him that weren't addressed, so he promised to come in to the office before the end of the week to complete the discussion. I'm hoping that maybe I misinterpreted some of the decisions made and can have an opportunity to offer some sober second thought, if I really am not mistaken.

Shortly after the meeting, I went back to the fileroom to pull some data. Almost immediately, the co-worker came and was in the aisle where I worked - fine if it was really to pull some data, but where he was digging wasn't where the work he said he was doing was stored. I don't like being blocked from leaving an area, but in this case I had no recourse, since he never asked if I wanted out of the narrow aisle or not. He had just moved, when the guy who has been bothering me appeared in the very same place. He had tried to catch my eye several times already this morning, while I was still at my workstation. Doesn't he ever do any work? Suddenly I heard my tech from the election's voice in the file/work room. He was standing at the printer talking with one of the other staff members. Don't know if it was coincidence - probably - or not, but I suddenly felt much safer and the guy in question scuttled out of the area as soon as he heard the voice. Come to think of it that's the second time in the past couple of work days where the two - coworker and harasser - have shown up together in a way that bracketed me without my consent. That guy was constantly at my station the rest of the day too - lucky I have headphones and a ball cap for protection - right dear diary?

Tried hard to get a lot done in the afternoon to make up for the lost time in the morning meeting. Everything was going fine until about 4 pm. All of a sudden the spreadsheet started doing odd things as though it was losing it's formatting. I know that happens when a certain amount of encoding is surpassed, so I just tried to clean it up on my own. After 15 minutes though it was obvious there was something beyond my skills happening. One of the company techs was walking by, so I called and asked for help. It turns out the "Numbers Lock" key was the problem. I don't understand how it could cause the problems with the formatting nor could the tech account for it. The other tech was standing there watching and he found it bizarre too. Just chalk it up to ghosts in the machine I guess, but at least I had two witnesses this time who didn't think I was crazy. I didn't make the quota I had hoped to, but I was also too tired to concentrate well enough to go any further and staying late wasn't an option. Groceries were my priority, so off I went. I'll talk with my supervisor about the deadline he's asked me to meet when he next visits. That's all I can do - right dear diary?

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