I was having a small problem. I was right about everything. All the time. If you did not agree with me, you might want to get out of the way. Since I had become my father I thought maybe my reproductive system had also contained all my patience and reason. I saw my doctor and asked when I could start taking estrogen so I didn't have to go to prison after I killed someone with my self righteousness. Seven years from the date of my surgery. Poor everyone.
I don't remember how everything happened exactly. Zelda, our friend Kimmie and I were driving to Dallas every day. I was now working for Wonder Woman as her second admin aide. She needed two. The woman "processed" mail by the pounds. This was before email. This was hard copy memos that had to be answered. Wonder Woman would leave with a briefcase and two arms full of mail in the evening and return in the morning with all responses written in her purple felt tip pen. She must not have slept or she had minions at home.
Somehow Elsie and Jeff and I worked things out. I don't remember how or when. I have a tendency to remember my self righteous rants not the resolutions. Elsie and I decided we would marry on July 28, 1983. The baby question had not been settled but at this time if I'd had a child I would have dropped him or her off at daycare and picked him/her by their seventh birthday.
Xerox, like I assume every corporation, has it's own language. EVERYTHING is an acronym. There are CIARS and FAOMS and ANAMS, oh my. I was learning Xerox while I was learning my job. Working for Wonder Woman was awesome unless you ever had to pee. The woman never stopped. I figured out that while she was indeed inscrutable, she blinked a little faster if she was concerned or in severe disagreement with anyone. This was helpful knowledge. Too much blinking, time to back off. Got it.
Finally the day came when we moved into our beautiful new glass tower that looked much like a can of Comet. We had three floors so far. We would eventuall have nine or eleven floors in this building. Another building was being completed to house the Region. The building attached but would have express elevators for the Regional offices on the twenty second floor.
So far we had Fort Worth and Dallas Branches. We would be moving in eleven more branches. The umpteen layers of management had probably had thousands of meetings about this endeavor. This was huge for the company. They forgot one small little thing. Really they forgot many things but the one that ended in my lap was they never considered how to file documents. Nor did they consider that of the 13 branches they were merging, not one filed like another. Oops. I was given the task of figuring this out in may spare time. We had a beautiful new file room with rolling cabinets. Side tabbed folders were necessary to use the shelves. Every file I saw was top tabbed. Wow, 11 million file folders, that shouldn't take too long.
That turned out to be the least of all the file issues. I had opened a can of worms in these cabinets and boxes. I was about to discover that I had the two skills necessary to be successful at Xerox. I could speak clearly, make sense, no one made me shiver when I had to speak and I knew how to debate. Debate is not arguing. Debate is knowing all sides of the subject and having the best supporting case for your position.
I was about to make important men very afraid. This is fun!
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