Bumbling Along
Good Morning. This is just me. We’ve been up for about a 30-45 minutes and am just getting to the first cup of coffee. I’m just going to readjust and then maybe begin the next paper. I know sooner than later. Let me work into it for a few minutes. I’m losing track of the days. I just checked and I now know its Wednesday I was thinking it might be, but wasn’t sure. I have to think for a second about yesterday.
My sense of it was that it was a good working day … I know I worked on policies. Oh yeah and Sr. went through some edits in some of the work I had asked her to proof. The changes weren’t substantial and I think as a whole she was pleased with the work, as much as she can say about those kinds of things. One of my older reports, she put in our friend mailbox to look at … she had questions and I showed her where she was concerned. I think she is having trouble concentrating because it is a 33 page document and there is a lot in there that isn’t direct … well maybe about 1/3, but that information is helpful too because it tells you what you need to do in getting your computer system running as it should.
The thing is that the other Sr. came down to my office during the day and told me how good the report was. She hadn’t read it, but she knows that the Sr. that is in charge of all the sisters in North America was in and she’d seen it and was impressed enough to take a copy home with her. The second sister was very happy for me; she said that it was a very good thing to have happened. I looked over the report again and thought it was acceptable. The regular Sr. had questions as to it being something toward pie in the sky as to my requests, but there was a very detailed budget and the request for further computer needs was only $6,000 and out of that request was for 8 new computers ($600 each) to replace computers for the clients that were 10-12 years old. It wasn’t an excessive demand all considering.
Toward the other work … I think there was some kind of distraction first thing. I remember that there was one small client problem, but that was minor. I can’t remember … I do know that I was working on policies and procedures. Oh yes too I remember something I’d put in some time for a couple of things toward a risk analysis and corporate compliance. Sister had given me back some other work … I thought it was hard on her, because she said she wouldn’t have any more time until Friday. She didn’t want to see the stuff on her desk before that. So I just left a little card to say those two terms, just so she wouldn’t be surprised. It is something that would take at least a day or two if done right … she’s going to want to circumvent the wheel. But at least it would be on her. She’s either going to do something toward or hand it back it to me. I can do the work on my own, but then she has to accept it being done our way. I know what CARF wants from the meeting and its going to be too different for sister.
The other sister asks that I consider her age in that change and new things are harder for her. But, then there is that part where we are part of the year 2007 and things do change, most for the better. It would be easier I think in some respect if the other sister had more of an immediate position. There are thoughts that she might take over, but I’m not ready to lose sister either, in that, she has been very good for the center in many ways, such as structure an order and capital development. BUT, there is no doubt that this second sister is pretty smart and she is someone you can talk to. She’s probably more open to conversations with the big convent, which could be good or bad … pretty much I think it is a good thing. I’ve never seen the big Sister place be restrictive of us. I did find out something yesterday in that between them they raised the rent. It was doubled even though it had said half of that in the minutes. I guess it was changed afterward … that made me feel a little frustrated because it was money that I thought should have gone to the center, but instead it is going to the mother house. It’s a substantial amount. But, eh that’s the way it is.
As to the policies and procedures that was going well. Sister is going to have a real problem when she sees there needs to be that many changes. There are a few that are completely new, but the majority just needs one or two sentences changed. CARF is being very clear in its need for just updates and after you get into it you know they are thinking just do the changes and all will be good. There is no need to fight the work. It just needs to be done. The changes have all been good too in that it just is asking for each to be a little more responsible and succinctly puts the individuals served on top of our attention. I think that’s a good thing.
The system of change is good too with the Paper Tiger … it’s a Godsend. Last night we were up later than we should have been checking out some other programs that are business orientated toward tracking and managing paperwork. I had problems downloading though in that it wanted to put them in my Print Shop program and that wasn’t workable. I’m thinking the program would be too expensive, and I’ll probably get a salesman, but I want to check out where the market is at. I came across the set of programs through BusinessWeek, so I figured it was up there as to being important. They call this set of programs “Enterprise wikis.” It’s a lot about team collaboration over intranets and includes managing projects, paperwork, email, etc.
I got one open from etouch.net last night and its ok. I was too tired to make decisions. I liked some of the things specially because I could load the free trial. The program we were looking at is SamePage. It gives you an upfront page to load … and is pretty editable. You can then link anything you can save to a hard drive as a clickable attachment. So it looks like this.
I got one open from etouch.net last night and its ok. I was too tired to make decisions. I liked some of the things specially because I could load the free trial. The program we were looking at is SamePage. It gives you an upfront page to load … and is pretty editable. You can then link anything you can save to a hard drive as a clickable attachment. So it looks like this.
It’s a very handy thing to have that many options … They haven’t all been figured out, but we gave it a good run through. I haven’t yet double-bonded it to my framework of thought for business. I’ve used in actuality a form through the Documents in holding everything like I have a section on Policies and Procedures, CARF, 2006-2006, My pictures, etc. And, that’s been my system. To go here might be a repeat, but I keep going back to the option for blogging which would help me in a format to write out my thoughts as to progress. I’m not sure if news is really necessary, but could be made use of. Ticket seems to be a “to-do” space. And, forum would be nice to track issues, but not necessary, just helpful. Eh, coming to the conclusion we had yesterday that it is not receptive enough. Not as well thought out as I would have done it. Too many of the areas you get into and think well what the hell are we supposed to do with this? Like it isn’t clear how we make an attachment. I couldn’t remember the trick although I’d added a few things the day before. This morning it was just frustrating and time consuming. I also disliked the “clear view” and how the page was set similar to Word, though it wasn’t … by now I really like the clear options I get when writing a page.
I’ll wait until I get to the office and perhaps there try out that other program that is supposed to have sales rep help. Maybe I’ll try downloading it at work. I’m still pretty sure it’s going to be cost prohibitive, but I’d like to again know what’s out there.
Shoot … looking into the other program Atlassian.com. But, they don’t offer upfront pricing. That’s always a bother. If they are going through that much bother to hide the price it is usually something worth hiding. One of the programs was saying only $49.99 a month and I thought eeeeeeehhhhh, getting into serious money. L
Hmm, little chilly think we’ll try out the shower
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/14/2007 06:49:00 AM
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