corporate odd couple: The fastidious records manager vs. organizational messiness, The

Few playwrights have been more successful than Neil Simon in creating characters who we immediately recognize--and with whom we often identify. An excellent example of Simon's artistry is the beer-slurping, potato-chip-spraying, cigar-ash-dropping Oscar in The Odd Couple. Equally memorable is his roommate, the persnickety, apron-clad, silent-butler-toting Felix. Whether via the stage, movie, or TV versions of the play, all of us have become acquainted with these creations. The appearance of Tony Randall, first as Felix in the TV series and then as a spokesman for microfilm equipment in printed advertisements, may have linked this neurotically tidy character to records management in my subconscious mind. However, it was only recently that I consciously realized that, if Felix were to be identified in the business world, he would surely be the organization's records manager. While the Oscars of the business world jam boxes of old documents under their tables, stack trays overflowing with paper on their desks, and see no value in "housekeeping" functions like records management, Felix would be the obvious candidate for the position of records manager. We instantly imagine him purging files and typing neat file folder labels. Our minds' eyes envision him meticulously creasing the spines of file folders so that the papers lie neatly inside. Of course, undoubtedly Felix's favorite responsibility would be the careful color-coordination of file-folder labels to produce just the right aesthetic effect.

Throughout at least the first two acts of The Odd Couple, Felix is clearly the preferred laughingstock of Simon's humor. Although Oscar is unquestionably a slob, he still seems functional and only mildly abnormal. Felix, however, is depicted as a dysfunctional misfit who each evening recooks his wife's meals and cleans up after the maid. Is records management similarly neurotic in its endless battle against the paperwork mess in most of our offices? Certainly, no one would argue that the energy spent in this endeavor is as wasteful as Felix's excessive cleaning and cooking. Moreover, we have not gone as far overboard in demanding regular file purging as Felix did at a men's poker party when he insisted upon coasters for drinks, folded napkins for dainty hors d'oeuvres, and chilled glasses for the beer. Yet the question remains whether or not our insistence upon cleaning up the paper mess has imposed an unnecessary and costly ancillary function upon organizations whose missions seem totally unrelated to records management excellence? In other words, would our organizations be just as effective--or almost as effective--in achieving their missions if they had no records managers? Since I am a records manager and jobs are not that easy to find in Los Angeles these days, you undoubtedly can guess the answer I intend to give to this question. Here it is anyway.

IN DEFENSE OF A RECORDS MANAGEMENT FELIX #1: EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT OF WORKING AND SUBJECT FILES

Many of our colleagues do not feel that records management principles are really relevant to the handling of their daily work. For example, although it may not be candidly expressed, they often appear to believe that keeping active records "strategically" strewn about their work stations, rather than put away neatly in departmental files, will enable them to remember the things they need to do. My wife espouses this conviction more forthrightly. She explains shamelessly that she leaves everything lying around (be it half-knitted sweaters, unpaid bills, clothes to be mended, children's homework to be reviewed, or even furniture to be repaired) because "If I put it away, I'll forget to do it." Then she adds, "So are you sure you really want me to put these things up?" With the sinking realization of having lost another domestic tournament, I have suggested lamely substituting a "To Do" list and have bought her a large variety of planning calendars. But these only add to the things lying around--and hanging on the refrigerator.

Unfortunately, I find many of the same attitudes at the office--even at my own work station. One needs to think only of the huge tickler files of papers "waiting for the right folder," "waiting to be reassessed," "waiting for a response," "waiting to be filed," and "waiting for something, but I can't remember what." Indeed, my wife has suggested, not without some justification, that my criticism of her "cluttering brand of project management" is an attempt to force her to do at home what I am unable to achieve at the office. All right, to be honest, part of the reason I leave important documents sitting on my desk is the same as my wife has articulated so bluntly: I am afraid that, if they are placed in the departmental files or even in my own two-drawer filing cabinet, I will forget to handle them or--worse--forget where I put them.

When I look at the work surfaces of my cohorts, I am convinced that they must be guilty of the same. From the appearance of their desks, it appears as though many of them are eternally sorting the contents of a packed five-drawer filing cabinet. However, often such slovenliness has not been adopted as a tactic to ensure remembering. Rather it results from a choice of priorities that relegates managing records to some unforeseeable future when all of the important tasks will have been completed. The efforts of people with such priorities are usually devoted just to staying on top of four or five current "priority" projects. They rarely realize that part of their problem in staying abreast of multiple tasks is the extra labor required to manage their bulging folders of partially inactive working papers and partially obsolete reference materials.

Office workers plagued by this problem and lured by their office supplies catalogs have tried many gimmicks to escape from cleaning out the glut of active working papers and subject files in which their work stations are submerged. The simplest of these devices is the desk drawer (or two-drawer filing cabinet) with hanging files for "only the most active paper." The problem with these is that most projects are never quite "closed out," and time is rarely set aside to go through our hanging files to see which projects are "de facto" closed. So the office worker--whether director, manager, or clerk--establishes another, parallel set of "really active" project and subject files. Sometimes these are housed in a portable "active record bin," an open tub of hanging files that is set up near the desk. Still another alternative, when system furniture is used, is to hang "active file" trays from the cubicle walls.

In my own case, I must admit to attempting to maintain a desk drawer of hanging folders, a two-drawer lateral cabinet of hanging folders, and a window-ledge lined with expandable folders. Added to these are my fabric-covered walls where I hang (in a pattern imitating my wife's refrigerator collages) the "genuinely current" projects, telephone lists, mission statements, cheat sheets for computer applications, copies of the budget for the past two years, maps of most of the rail lines in Southern California, and my children's art work. All of these "files" are updated according to a very clear indicator: When they can hold no more.

Such devices promise order for current project and subject files, but in the end they usually deepen the problem. For they produce a multiplicity of filing systems that lack consistency and contain overlapping headings. It can almost be guaranteed that some of the subjects and projects will be represented by multiple potential filing locations in the different systems. Of course, whenever we have multiple series of files with no clear criteria for differentiation, we will never really know where to expect a given document--especially since the distinction between files associated with discrete projects, functions and subjects fades very quickly with time. For example, in different sets of files, I have folders for "Imaging Project," "Published Materials on Imaging," "Imaging Vendors," and "Electronic Capture of Documents." Yesterday I had to look through all of them in order to find a memorandum I had written entitled "Technical Requirements List for Imaging System." When I still could not find it, I reprinted it from the word processing disk--still another parallel "active record" file. Yes, I found it. We usually do. But consider the valuable time spent looking for it through multiple sets of overlapping, unpurged files.

Office productivity is not achieved through filing gimmicks--no matter how glitzy. For it is futile to attempt to escape a filing system containing obsolete materials or organized according to an outdated project program merely by setting up a new parallel system. The remedy in such situations is rather to purge the original system and reorganize what is left. In other words, we must clean up the mess rather than merely disperse it. We must get rid of working papers when the project is over; we must inactivate functional files when the function has been eliminated or combined with something else; we must remove obsolete materials from our subject files. In summary, records management principles suggest that Felix's continual "tidying up" is required for the efficient management of the working and subject files associated with any business endeavor.

IN DEFENSE OF FELIX #2: THE LOST DOCUMENT PROBLEM

The lost document is a favorite topic among records managers--and other office workers when they talk about records management functions. We have studies that inform us to the cent exactly how much an average lost document costs. Every rationale for an automated microfilm indexing system points out the advantage of microfilm in preventing such losses. Similarly, the justifications for electronic imaging equipment not only claim the elimination of loose pages but guarantee that the document and the index to it are "electronically fused." Even when they do not include micrographic or electronic imaging systems, nearly every records manager's set of annual objectives includes reduction of lost records. However, it is unusual to find a discussion of how we actually lose the records. Do they fall out of our briefcases? Does the cleaning crew accidentally knock them into the trash can? Do the thieves from competitors take them from an unlocked cabinet? Is there some camouflaged black hole through which they fall when we are looking the other way?

Although at one time or another my mind has toyed with such images, the usual answer is probably a good deal more prosaic: "Lost records" are really misplaced in the mess. But the question of "how" still remains: How does this misplacement occur? One answer, of course, is that the document is filed in another of the duplicate sets of files described above. Another is that, in a messy, poorly maintained file drawer, labels are often missing; documents can slip down in uncreased, overfilled file folders; or we sometimes lose track of whether we are filing the latest or the earliest towards the front. Moreover, because an unpurged file folder has too many documents, the document we want has probably been wedged into whatever space the file clerk was able to squeeze it.

There is another procedural culprit perhaps equally as much to blame: The accidental merger of unrelated documents. Since this cause is often overlooked, I will discuss it here in more detail. After thinking about my work style, I have come to the conclusion that the lost-record calamity happens to me most often when the only area available to place a document is a working surface that is already covered with papers. In a frighteningly high percentage of the time, I pick up the two documents together and place them as a newly unified whole into a working file or into a basket of documents to be microfilmed or filed. Sometimes the error apparently results from my being in too big a hurry; sometimes it seems to occur when I am temporarily preoccupied with the task at hand and forget that the document I am looking at has been placed on top of something else. Naturally, I do not realize this mistake when I am making it; my knowledge of it comes from continually finding the results of such blunders when I am looking in a file for something else. Undoubtedly, I have only discovered a very small percentage of such misfilings. Most often the document at the bottom is lost forever, for microfilm technicians and file clerks (at least those who are efficient) rarely examine beyond the first page of a document. As for the rest of us office workers, can any of us really claim to review systematically and regularly every page in our working files? Certainly I cannot.

Always on the lookout for clever-sounding, novel solutions, I have considered several work rules to combat this problem:

* Never place one document on top of another (a good idea, but possible only if the working surfaces are not covered with paper--in which case the problem would not happen in the first place).

* Before picking up any document from a working surface, check that the bottom page belongs to it (a behavioral modification probably requiring the type of electrical shock therapy used to break alcohol, tobacco, and drug addictions).

* Preserve the integrity of each document you handle from adulteration by keeping it stapled or binder-clipped (a good idea until you need to revise a page or share a page with someone else or compare a statement on one page with something on another).

Undoubtedly, there are many other possibilities. Given the cost of lost documents, a really effective solution (especially if it includes hi-tech devices utilizing laser or infrared light and some sort of electronic alarm buzzer) would be at least as marketable as the proverbial "better mousetrap." However, just as the best way to rid your house of rats is to clean it thoroughly, the best way to eliminate lost records is to clean up the paper mess. With mop in one hand and broom in the other, a records management Felix might provide us with more valuable--if old-fashioned--tips, such as:

* Regularly review and purge all files of obsolete materials;

* Do not leave loose sheets or piles of paper on working surfaces;

* Crease your file folders and label them neatly;

* Keep the latest materials in the front (or on the left) of the folder.

IN DEFENSE OF FELIX #3: THE ARGUMENT OF SAFETY AND SECURITY

I am beginning to recognize that the office can be a very dangerous place to work. If visiting my coworkers in the hospital had not already brought this point home, the endless workshops on reducing worker-compensation claims would have. Admittedly, the dangers of working in an office may not be so dramatic as being shocked by a severed power line, being pounded into the pavement by a falling steel girder, or other risks faced by blue-collar workers. Nevertheless, they are real. In fact, the office may be all the more dangerous because it appears so safe compared with the hard-hat areas. The workers in these latter areas receive regular safety workshops, wear back supporters and safety shoes, and are surrounded by signs detailing the "safe way to do the job."

Of the safety hazards in the office, a significant portion results from messiness and carelessness in handling paper. Everywhere there is paper: paper in process; paper that was supposed to remain there only a day or so, and has stayed since we have forgotten when; paper that we have become so used to that we do not even notice it anymore. This plethora of paper becomes especially dangerous when it accumulates in "temporary" heaps: piles of paper that have been deposited awaiting "review"; stacks of paper that are to be processed and sent off-site; other stacks that have been retrieved from off-site and are awaiting some determination from legal counsel; folders of paper collected from the last four meetings of some task force; and other folders of paper that have been purged from file drawers that could hold no more.

These "temporary" mounds of office paper constitute an obstacle course that is perilous enough in and of itself. They are particularly hazardous in conjunction with our proclivity to rearrange work areas without sufficient help from safety-conscious professionals. Often the result is an abstract-art pattern of long electrical extension cords encircling the piles of paper--with multiple receptacles jutting up between them. What possible harm could come from such paper? For one thing, it can burn, and it probably violates the city's fire code. For another, you can fall over it when you back up as you are talking. The last time I saw this misfortune, the casualty ended up with a bloody scalp and a concussion when her head banged against the corner of a filing cabinet.

For busy people in an office, paper is a mine field, where one false step means a sprained ankle, a pulled back, or a concussion. Piles of messy paper are exceptionally good examples of hazards we cannot afford not to clean up. Remember the consequences of not leaning up the paper mess: A worker's compensation case from tripping or lifting the paper...a fire department citation...a fire. Only one of these is sufficient to outweigh all protestations of "completing the priority projects first."

Paper also fills boxes. Just because you crammed the paper into boxes rather than leaving it in piles does not exempt it as a safety hazard. Once these boxes are stacked up high enough, they can fall--which can be a painful experience for whomever is beneath them. Sometimes an accumulation of boxes has been in our way so long, we can endure them no more, and we move them without taking appropriate preparations. The consequence is nearly always a back injury--often a permanent one. When we elect to clear the floor by stashing the boxes on top of cabinets, the result can hurt even more. Boxes of paper are such deceivingly innocent-looking objects. I do not pretend they are very often lethal. Maybe some would consider those who worry about such things to be wimps like Felix. But all who have worked with records boxes know they can inflict pain. It is not being a sissy to keep the working area neat and have properly equipped, properly trained personnel put the boxes where they belong.

IN DEFENSE OF FELIX #4: THE ARGUMENT OF HYGIENE AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

Aside from the safety hazards, messy offices are not healthy offices. For one thing, they are inhabited by throngs of nasty dust mites. I have never actually seen one of these horrid creatures--not even in a book or under a microscope. Yet I can tell when they are present because the people with allergies to them and the dust in which they thrive begin to break out with rashes, coughs, and respiratory discomfort. Indeed, the very fact you cannot see them makes their presence all the more loathsome, since you know they must be at least as unpleasant in appearance as other, larger pests. You seem to feel them crawling all over the stack of paper that has been sitting in the corner for the last three weeks. Of course, you do not need to imagine the appearance of many of the other vermin attracted to old paper: silverfish, roaches, and rats. Some might claim that dust mites, vermin, and messy office workers are all interdependent parts of an office ecological system and that to clean up the paper mess would upset the natural balance of the office environment. Yet it does seem that we could trust Nature to reestablish a balance without the office mess. Why can't the dust mites and vermin eat outside, like other animals?

Not only does messiness negatively impact our physical well-being, it is also detrimental to employee mental health. While a totally sterile and polished work environment can be cold and unfriendly, a disheveled, disorganized office can be an irksome depressant. Faced with many dissimilar piles of paper and ragged folders, we find our minds often begin to reflect the disorder of our surroundings. We find it difficult to decide what to do first. We find ourselves unable to concentrate on the task at hand and prone to act ineffectually in several directions at once. Even when we are able to get something done, being surrounded by a mess leaves us subconsciously feeling like inadequate losers.

Naturally, after we work long enough in a mess, we get used to it and learn to perform minimally well. However, the mess to which we have become accustomed will still immediately draw the attention of clients and visitors whom the organization wishes to serve--and usually to convince or impress. Does an organizational mess really inspire public or customer trust? Few people are eager to purchase products or accept ideas identified in their minds with a messy environment. Far from being peripheral functions, cleaning up the paper mess is a prerequisite to the pursuit of the organization's mission. To downplay its importance is like saying that filling your gas tank is not a "critical part" of an automobile trip or that getting dressed is "ancillary" to going to work. After all, a nude commuter standing by his out-of-gas car on the freeway is not well-situated to succeed in his job.

JUSTIFYING FELIX TO THE ORGANIZATION

If the records management Felix's campaign against messiness in the office is justified, why is it not more successful? In some cases, the failure may result from the records manager's "do as I say, not as I do" approach. For some records managers--and I am not fully able to exclude myself from this group--resemble Oscar more than Felix. Surrounded by the jumbled paper discards that result from the purging efforts of other offices, they justify their mess by claiming that they are only the recipients of a mess that originated elsewhere. They claim that there is no rush to clean up the disarray, because it is just a conglomeration of inactive records that, by definition, are infrequently accessed. However, the notoriety of a paper mess is even more damaging to the records management program than to the mission of the organization as a whole. After all, eliminating the paperwork burden is an integral part of records management's own raison d'etre. Are we really going to convince the staff to follow our advice to clean up their files and trust us with their records, if they see our own area in cluttered disorder. Deep down inside, most of us records management Oscars know that we must clean up our own department before we clean others. Tidiness is a lesson that records management must teach by example as well as by word.

The problem for records managers that would never dream of being slobs like Oscar is that they often make the same mistake that Felix made in The Odd Couple: They are happy to run around and pick up after the rest of the organization. Am I really suggesting that the programs of many records managers resemble the absurdity of Felix as he vacuumed after the maid went home, recooked his wife's dinner, or distributed coasters and napkins at the poker party? Yes, I am. Think about the records manager who "assists" other departments organize their files by actually doing all of the paper shuffling, purging, and boxing. Think of the records managers who, smiling through clenched teeth, accept inactive records in a variety of flimsy cardboard boxes without lids or manifests, even though they know that everything will have to be reorganized, reboxed, and itemized. Think of the records manager who maintains a duplicate central file because the departments cannot find anything in their own unpurged, inconsistently organized, haphazardly maintained filing cabinets.

The really sad, ironical part of such situations is the futility of this well-intentioned records management labor. For it is much more important that the records be maintained well when they are active and frequently accessed than when they sit idly in neatly organized archival storage boxes. Moreover, even when the records manager has a duplicate set of active files, the departments are more likely to spend hours trying to find their copies than come to the records center. Delaying the application of records management tidiness until the records are transferred to the records manager's custody is as absurd as waiting until you sell your house to clean the junk out of your garage and closets. (Of course, I am guilty of that, too.)

ELIMINATING THE MESS AS AN ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGE NOT JUST A NEUROSIS OF RECORDS MANAGEMENT

Clearly, just as cleaning up the paper mess is a corporate priority central to the organization's mission, rather than merely a "records management goal," so must the achievement of it be corporate in nature, rather than just the job of records management. The records manager can be neither Oscar, claiming that the clutter is inherited from other departments, nor Felix, satisfied with the "joy of cleaning up" as an end in itself. Rather the records manager must lead the rest of the organization in cleaning up their own records while they are still active. The records manager must educate the other departments on the fundamentals of neatness. Such a training course should include the following points alluded to above:

* Maintenance of orderly records is a prerequisite for achieving the goals of each department and the organization's mission as a whole.

* Only one set of subject and working files should be maintained by anyone.

* Files should be purged and/or inactivated on a regular basis.

* Documents should not be left out on work surfaces.

* Piles (or boxes) of paper should not be left on the floor, in the corner, in front of doors, or on top of cabinets.

* File drawers should be kept neat, with legible labels, creased file folders, and a limited number of pages in each file.

* "Non-records" (e.g., duplicates, most transmittals, courtesy copies, and informal notes) should not be filed.

* Standard filing equipment, supplies, and organizational structures should be adopted.

In conjunction with such training, it is wise to arrange periodically (preferably each 3 months), an organization-wide "Paper Day," in which everyone spends the whole day purging files and boxing inactive records for storage. After all, who else can effectively purge a file other than those who created it and use it. If thoughtfully arranged, this can be a "fun" day, a break from the routine, perhaps with the company furnishing soft drinks and lunch. Such an activity can also help promote organizational esprit de corps and pride.

Actually Neil Simon made precisely this same point in the conclusion to The Odd Couple. Felix had left with the English sisters Oscar had been pursuing, and Oscar was alone once more with the guys at a poker party. But this time it was Oscar "Slob" who lectured the others on using coasters for their drinks. Then, as he bent down to pick up some cigarette butts on the floor, he added "And watch your cigarettes, will you? This is my house, not a pig sty." Felix had gone, but his influence continued. So should it be with the records manager.

Copyright Association of Records Managers Administrators Inc. Apr 1994
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