THE SPACE SHUTTLE

Anyone who thinks that I’m going to discuss the NASA version of this probably hasn’t read my blog before. I don’t see much value in talking on a subject that I’ll never be involved with in any way.

My kind of space shuttle is the one that has to do with trying to shuttle around crap at city hall so we can create more space. And let me tell you this can definitely be a challenge at times.

That’s because I happen to work with the biggest collection of hopeless pack rats on the planet. Oh you might know a few who could compete for the title no doubt, but I still feel I have some real contenders on my payroll.

I do accept the reality that to a certain degree the very nature of bureaucracy is such that it is only normal to have plenty of red tape and that always leads to lots of paper work. So I do tolerate the fact this means plenty of file cabinets and plenty of files to fill them.

Still, the thing is that sooner or later some of that paperwork does outlive is value. I’m not speaking about critical items such as birth and death records. There are a number of documents you can never discard. But we do try to conserve space by putting them on microfilm or in a computer data base.

What I take issue with is the insipid addiction some of my employees have for wanting to preserve such items as old newspapers, memos and even flyers. I’m telling you do we really need to save a memo regarding a holiday from 1982? I hardly think so.

Now perhaps it is a tribute to the folks that they have maintained files by year and alphabetically within a month folder. That is being organized.

However, I fail to see the likelihood that I will have occasion to need to know when in the year 1972 that we ordered toilet paper. I’m not that curious personally.

But try convincing some of the help that is not important. You would think I was daring to suggest we rid out city hall of something sacred.

So from time to time I wage the war to purge our city hall of useless data. Oh, I didn’t say it was easy. Nope, it is more like I toss out an idea and they give me excuses for why these folders have to stay where they are.

Eventually it becomes a matter of compromise. I suggest tossing things, they counter with reason not to. Then I have to engage in bartering.

What this amounts to is my offering them the chance to save new crap in replace of old crap. It is the only cure I’ve found that works. It doesn’t necessarily get rid of all the papers. But at least it isn’t as outdated.