You may recall my recent account of how I ascended the corporate ladder at the start of my career by strategically automating a document conversion process with a bent typing stand designed to hold down the S key on the keyboard. No longer needing a human being to press the S key to save the converted documents, I assumed the promoted position of Systems Analyst for many years at a pharmaceutical company. Over the course of that time period, I worked in the Document Management Group and became intimately familiar with the documents themselves. They varied in type, from Test Methods used in the laboratories to Standard Operating Procedures utilized in office settings. However, within a heavily monitored clinical environment subject to FDA review without any advance notice, one must observe meticulous protocol when filling out or marking up these documents. My boss had appreciated my attention to detail and proposed that perhaps I should transition from being a Systems Analyst to a Technical Writer. I was open to the idea and took the training required to embark upon this new career path. One of the most important things I learned during that time was in the event of making a handwritten error on a document, one should make a single strikethrough over the error. Then, the corrected content should be written above, along with the current date and ones initials. With the watchful eyes seemingly everywhere, I began to feel somewhat unnerved and self-conscious when I had accidentally written the wrong year shortly after the New Year of 2003. Erasable ink was not allowed, nor was White Out. So, following procedure, I drew my single strikethrough through 2002 and wrote 2003, followed by the current date and my initials. I did this, only to realize that while I wrote 2003 in the correction, they required a middle initial as well, whereas I only wrote my first and last initials. Due to other colleagues having the same first and last initials, I had no choice but to strikethrough the strikethroughs amendment and write an amended note with the corrected completed initials, along with the current date above. Unfortunately, all was still not well because in my haste to write my full initials, I had not carried over the original correction of 2003 from 2002. I was then left with no option but to strikethrough the struckthrough strikethroughs amendment and write the original correction above, paired with another current date and initials. At this point, other critical data on the document was becoming occluded by the staircase of strikethroughs and revisions, leading me to be unsure of how best to proceed in that situation. I decided to go to my boss with this question, along with a couple of other questions I had wanted to ask for a while to ensure I follow things to the letter. She told me that we must keep the original document no matter how it eventually looks due to the corrections. I then began to cover the list of unanswered questions that I had, starting with, What does one do in the event of an unexpected catastrophic grease fire rendering the document illegible in the break room, reducing it to a pile of ashes? Do we store the ashes somewhere and write on a fresh copy, Original copy destroyed due to accidental grease fire. See ashes in storage.? She never gave me an answer to that question. In truth, it was because I dont think she knew. But you know what? I wasnt going to worry about it anymore because it felt good to be a Systems Analyst again.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 09:33:34 +0000
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