This weekend is a working weekend for me. While the day started out leisurely enough (Jean and I slept in until 9:00, listened to Daniel Schorr and Scott Simon talking, had breakfast and didn't really get organized until almost noon), I've spent all afternoon and evening working on a user guide for faculty and staff at the University. In my position as trainer one of the early goals has been a revision of the 1992 user manual that was designed primarily for the half-dozen data entry offices on campus at that time.
My new user guide ('guide' sets a much better tone for what I hope to achieve than 'manual') should be much more friendly. I won't drag you through all the lovely nuances I'm attempting in this much-needed revision: the important thing is that I slay the beast this weekend.
I set a deadline for this document with Louie (my boss), which he has subsequently mentioned in the management meetings. Why did I do this? Because I needed a deadline to crank this bloody thing out. With five years in the Registrar's Office behind me, I'm familiar with the system and with the needs of end-users across campus. If I were new to the University and new to the database, I might need time to come to grips with the material. But that's not the case. There's no excuse not to get it done.
It's just there are so many other things going on (implementations, on-going projects, almost weekly training classes this Spring, and a baby that's due in just twenty six days) that this document would fall to the bottom of the pile. It's too badly needed for that to happen.
And so I am spending this weekend like a college student with a deadline for a term paper. "First part of the week of the eleventh" was how Louie put it. We've got a consultant visiting campus from Tuesday afternoon through Friday, so if this bad boy isn't on its way to the Print Shop by Tuesday at noon, I lose.
I'm two-thirds of the way through, excluding the appendices, which don't really have to be completed this week. I finished the second third today. Tomorrow I attack the final third.
In the meantime, I'm trying to spend time with Jean. I want every moment I can get with her. She's been very understanding about getting the guide done, but she's just as jealous of our last weeks together (before the baby) as I am, if not more so. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner together. After dinner in front of the fireplace, I pulled out one of the pregnancy books and we stared at pictures of the stages we've been through and (gulp) what's to come. Now I'm going to get this entry up on the server so she and I can spend the last of our evening together talking in the baby's room.
It was warm enough today that we had the kitchen door and windows open. I'd say we were in the fifties, but I'm not certain. The fire tonight was more for the look than the feel, but it made for a nice evening.
listening: Shepherd Moon (Enya); Shaking the Tree (Peter Gabriel); Medusa (Annie Lennox); Rhythm Nation (Janet Jackson); Seal II (Seal)
visiting: my life: an ongoing re-interpretation (mike's back!)
© 1999 Kevin J.T. Creamer