Areas of Unrest

20 April 2000 - Newness, In Brief

QOTD: "We always heard about how rich everyone was in America. But here it is Pesach, and we don't even have any bread in the house." - my father

Reading: Jonathan Gash, Prey Dancing

Listening to: The London cast recording of A Little Night Music

There has been a lot of newness at work the past few days. The most obvious example is our new program director. We didn't get the full pageant of the change of command ceremony because of the heavy rain on Monday moving things inside, but there was still a bit of it - the honor guard and the passing of the flag stuff. Mary Joan commented that she needs to get onto whatever committee is responsible for the design of military uniforms so that she could make sure there would be name plates on service dress. I just didn't worry about figuring out who the people I didn't know were, which is easy at these big gatherings. At smaller events, I feel more obliged to socialize. I didn't stay for the reception, either, since I had to move a bunch of files around on my computer in preparation for the second new thing.

Namely, a new computer at work. There's a desktop retirement program, which means that they replace the oldest machines each year. I went from a P-166 to a PIII-600. The hassle part is making sure they don't lose your important files in the changeover, so I had made a good effort at moving various vital documents (like my netscape bookmarks file) into the My Documents folder. They didn't seem to lose anything, but I had to wait 3 hours for somebody else to come and install Outlook because the people who do the main installation stuff don't do that. And it was the next day before I had Microsoft Project installed which caused a bug which meant that they had to reinstall Office. I made my usual snide comments about my refusal to use Office at home, since I try to keep my apartment a Microsoft Free Zone. It all seems to be working okay now, or as well as this sort of stuff ever works.

The new thing that will have the most significant effect when it comes to enhancing my life, however, is a new briefcase. I'd ordered it a week and a half ago, but hadn't been home to pick up the package from the office in my building. I've had a long and arduous history with briefcases so getting a new one is always a difficult experience. When I was first interviewing for jobs, I used a simple portfolio type. This looks good enough but has two major disadvantages. First of all, it has no handles, so you have to tuck it under your arm and put it down if you are manipulating other things, making it easier to, say, leave at an airport news stand by accident. (I realized I'd done that and got it back about 10 minutes later, but it made me wary of the portfolio ever since.) Secondly, and more seriously, you have to carry a separate pocketbook, since it isn't big enough to put your pocketbook in and has no pockets to separate all the usual stuff from your business papers.

I moved on to a rather shabby brown case with handles that had once been my father's. It had handles and a reasonable amount of room, but I still needed to carry a separate pocketbook. And the color was all wrong, since I never wear brown. When I got promoted to a management job, I decided it was time to treat myself to a nice briefcase. I found a lovely one at a department store and spent more money than I'd ever expected to on this sort of thing. It was a slick taupe leather, with both handle and shoulder strap and combination lock. It was too narrow to put my pocketbook into, but I dutifully transferred my wallet and change purse and tampons and pens into the briefcase and looked oh so professional. Oh, sure it was awkward to have to stick the change purse into a suit pocket at lunch time. And I still had to take a pocketbook with me as well on business trips so I wouldn't need to take the briefcase with me to dinner. But it was a lovely briefcase and, in fact, people were always complimenting me on how nice it was.

Then the handle fell off. I'm still not really sure what happened but I got onto a plane with the handle on and got off the plane with the handle off. I wrote to the company that made the briefcase and had them send me a new handle but things were just never the same again. My trust had been violated.

I changed jobs, moving from line management to a program office job where I am now. (We have a matrixed organization. Instead of supervising people in the engineering group directly, I get to dole out support money to them.) The job change (which included a promotion; my title is "senior project engineer") came with a new briefcase purchase. This time it was a Land's End attache. Black canvas, casual, and very very practical since it had tons of pockets and was big enough for me to slip my pocketbook into. There was only one catch. Everybody else had an identical briefcase. Okay, not everybody, but there were at least a half dozen others around at any given meeting. Fortunately most other people had gotten theirs monogrammed and I made a point of sitting far away from the few other people who didn't like their initials on their bag.

Everything was wonderful for a few years. And then a bit of canvas began to fray. One corner at a time, the canvas deteriorated, until it was downright embarrassing. I could have ordered the same briefcase again, I suppose, but I wanted something that wasn't identical to everyone else's. So I began the search. I'd gotten so used to the convenience of that bag that it wasn't easy. There has to be that handy outside pocket for boarding passes and a newspaper. There has to be that inside pocket that is perfectly sized for plane tickets and receipts. And pen pockets. And enough room for my pocketbook.

I ended up ordering a blue canvas attache ("our best buy briefcase") from L.L. Bean. I've transferred a few essentials to it already - a copy of the permanent travel orders that entitle us to government rates on hotel rooms (I have been asked for this exactly once in over a dozen years of business travel), a few pens, a puzzle book. The real test will come in a week and a half on my next business trip. In the meantime, it feels nice to have something respectable and new.