Paperless office, clueless office...?

Yes, it's a work rant for once...

Paper still has its uses. Especially for confidential documents.

The only thing worse than writing something for internal distribution only, stamping "Commercially Confidential" all over it and then having it find its way out to suppliers/customers/competitors is writing something for internal distribution, adding more idiot-proofing by writing "Do not send it to our business partners at Acme Inc! Whatever you may think, whatever they may have signed, they're not part of the company!" in 20-point bold text on the front page, and still having it find its way to Acme Inc. That would be... unfortunate

It's also something which IMHO is much more likely with soft copies, as some folks don't actually bother to look at the file contents before they redistribute them - and cover notes in e-mails etc can be stripped out when the file circulates internally, or lost when it's saved and then forwarded at a later date.

But how to stop it? Given that the likely culprits aren't going to go away anytime soon, and aren't easily 'educated'... there has to be some sort of idiot-proof safety measure that might work. Well, hopefully. It's that or stick to good old paper, as they might be a little less likely to ignore warnings on the front page of a document they're photocopying...

I'm not saying that we've made this kind of blunder, of course. We haven't. Yet. But it doesn't take a crystal ball to see it lurking somewhere in the future.

An island of calm...

BiCon's just started being real.

.I'm still at work (stuck here 'til 5), but I seem to be getting more non-work phone calls from committee members than anything else...

Kay's at the venue, and all is well. Except that their copy of the accommodation list isn't sorted in the same sequence as our copy. One more little irritation. People have started arriving, allegedly.

Giolla's on a train. Somewhere. Have faith in Railtrack, for they are not that crap.

And everyone else is in/around Cov and venue-bound. So it looks like I'll be the last one there, turning up with a bundle of addendum stickers for the programme booklets, a CD player and assorted other frippery. In the mean time, I'm the friendly switchboard operator. Someone has to do it, and there's not much else I can do, but it still doesn't feel terribly useful from where I'm sitting...

An island of calm... (part #2)

Well, they wouldn't be proper last minute amendment labels without a few typos, now would they? :)

Still...I'm calm, really. I'm going to remember to take calm music with me, too. I'll be stressed enough without listening to 150bpm EBM stuff, so the Neuroticfish and Assemblage 23 is definitely staying at home. Shriekback, however... that's different...