Welcome to the new corporate colors - right on Head Office's schedule!
Monday: Elli took me to Kent over the Bank Holiday vacation, to visit with some friends of hers. The hotel was good but there were a lot of people around, so we went out to walk on the marshes instead of staying on the coast. I was expecting wetlands but it was all drained off, although there were a lot of water channels. It rained on the Sunday and the lighthouse we were going to go up was closed, but apart from that we had a good time.
We visited with Elli's friends in Rye - they live in an old house in the center and the street they live on was used as the set for a TV show. Elli's got the tapes of it too as she likes the author the show was based on. They took us around to show us the town, and point out all the places you can see in the TV show. It's a real good place to see, it's small so you get to see everything, and most people were in the center and along the river so it wasn't too crowded out.
I've not been in that part of Britain before, and it was worth going. We were only there a couple days as Elli had to get back to work, and it's the first long-distance driving she's done so it all went well. I got back to home about ten, just in time to tidy up and get ready for work in the morning.
Tuesday: James and LeeAnn are both back from vacation, Donna's gone for the next two weeks, and things are looking good. We all walked in this morning to find no headed paper or multi-part invoices or envelopes or anything with the old blue and white corporate logo on, as AJ came in early to raid everyone's stationary stash and took it all.
AJ called us together for the morning meeting as we all didn't have one yesterday, and said from now on nobody is to use anything with the old blue and white logo on - it's all red and white from here on.
The only problem is the new red and white print hasn't been distributed yet.
AJ then went on to say he'd decided over the weekend to implement a "streamlining" policy. While he was going around confiscating all the old blue and white stationary he noticed most everybody had several pens and pencils, all at various stages of their lives. From now on we all shall keep one pen and one pencil only. The same goes for staples and metal clips and tags, and writing pads. We all must economize, and there's too much money tied up in unnecessary stationary objects. After AJ'd wandered off back to his office, I turned to James and said I guess you're glad to be back, aren't you? He said no.
I followed him back in to his office and told him about the paper shredding and the trash pre-sorting, and he said I don't know why I came back. Then I told him most of the accounts work had been left, but it'd been collected up and was in the trays on his desk. He said good, at least nobody's tried to do it and made a pig's ear of it for me to sort out. He reminded me I'd agreed to help him out by inputting and I said I'd do it when he'd got it up together. Then I went out to welcome LeeAnn back.
I told her about the paper shredding and the trash pre-sorting too, and she said I won't bother - AJ told you to do it while I was away, so I don't know anything about it unless he comes and tells me to do it too.
Fiona called up Head Office Purchasing mid-afternoon as they're supposed to be coordinating the print run for all the stuff with the new corporate colors, and told us all what they'd said. They're running late. The print runs had all been worked out so everything would have been ready for the changeover, but unfortunately it was all interrupted to print off new business cards for the Sales Teams.
Wednesday: We all got the new envelopes today, with the logo on in the new corporate colors. We all couldn't use them though because there's still no headed paper or anything to put in them, and the address printed on the back is for a different office altogether. Fiona called up Head Office Purchasing and told us all they'd been glad she called as they knew the batch had been sent out but they didn't know where to. They're sending a courier over to collect it up again to take it to the correct office, and deliver our envelopes.
The big printer was working fine after the lunchbreak, and LeeAnn was the only person printing out anything. She told AJ she had to print out the production plan and the parts lists or the factory would just stop, so he gave in and said she could print as long as it was on the back of the blue and white logo paper and not the front.
Amy lost her pen at some point in the afternoon - she'd taken AJ seriously and only had the one, but she must have put it down somewheres and hadn't got one when she was taking messages. She hadn't got a phone message pad any more either as it had the old blue and white logo on and AJ had taken it away, so she had to write out the messages on yellow post-it notes. Unfortunately (as she hadn't got a pen) she wrote them out in yellow highlighter, so we all had to sit and turn the note this way and that to try to get the light to show up the letters.
I asked her why didn't she just write out the message on email and then send it to the person, and she said yes, what a good idea!
Thursday: Fiona called up Head Office purchasing again this morning, and told us all what they'd said. The printers are working hard, and have nearly finished the compliment slips. The next run will be the visitors badges, the car stickers, and the phone message pads. The run after that will be the headed paper, and the run right after that one will be the multi-part documents - so maybe we all might get some invoices and shipping notes. LeeAnn and Amy (covering for Donna) can't invoice anything until they get some, and I can't send items out until I do. We all went after AJ.
He said there's nothing he could do about it and Head Office probably had a very good reason for doing it in that order. He then said OK, we all could use plain paper until the new paper arrived, and would Fiona buy some in. James got some money out of petty cash and Fiona went out during the lunch break to buy two boxes of paper at a local stationary store, so we're all back in action.
Mike came in this afternoon to pick up some of the new headed paper, envelopes and compliment slips, and so he could show us all his new business cards.
LeeAnn came over to my office and said you're helping James catch up with the accounts from last week, aren't you? will you help us get the invoices done when we get the multi-part paper as there's going to be at least a week's worth. I said I won't have time - I'll be looking for help too as I can't do any multi-part shipment notes either. She said oh well, we'll just have to get James to help us, and you'll have to ask Fiona. I said oh I've already asked James myself so you'll have to ask Fiona - then scooted over to see James quick and made sure I'd asked him first.
Friday: AJ said at the morning meeting the printers were coming along fine now, and we'd all soon have the new headed paper and phone message pads. Fiona said to make sure we all proof-read it before it's used so it can go back if it's wrong. LeeAnn said when will we get the multi-part forms then? AJ said soon now, so I reminded him we all can't invoice or ship anything until we do - unless we all use the old blue and white as a temporary measure. He said no, we can't use the blue and white. Several customers have called up to ask when they'll be getting their shipments, and Packing is getting full with nowhere to put things, so I'm going to be busy when we all finally get the multi-part.
The maintenance engineer came in to repair the big shredder, and brought a whole new set of cutting blades because of what Donna had told him. He said he was glad he did, and laid the old ones out to show us all what Mike had done to it. There's several of the blades missing and one or two skewed so bad they'd be trying to cut up each other if you used it. Mike was acting busy so he could pretend not to notice, but we all looked.
AJ came around to check on everybody just before he went to the afternoon meeting at Head Office, so we all carried on working and ignored him. I was inputting invoices for James and he wanted to know what I was doing with old blue and white invoices, so I said I was helping James out with last week's stuff because I can't do any multi-part shipment notes, and he said oh is that the time I must be going. I got up and followed him over to the door to tell him I'd be helping LeeAnn and Amy next week too covering for Donna because they can't do any multi-part invoices.
LeeAnn said good, you'll be helping us then, so I said no - I just said that to get him out. Fiona said actually I've already agreed to help, but if you don't need me to… LeeAnn said yes we do if he's not going to help us after all, and I said look, I've got a backlog myself.
Mike said nobody's asked me to help - I could input things for you. I said no that's OK, we'll all manage between us and we all don't want you to stay in the office when there's all those customers you could be visiting. Mike said yes that's true, and have you seen my new business cards? We all said yes, they're real nice. He's shown them to us at least four times now.
read 01/08/20-24 or read 01/09/03-07 