Pre-manufacture procedures

This is the first time I've worked with a properly experienced QA manager who fully understands the requirements and implications of what QA actually does in a company. And it's going to be a real education.

Mistress Mouth's predecessors were Darth Chaos (strictly speaking she was Quality Director, but she took a significant interest in QA) who specialised in Regulatory Affairs rather than QA, my old Jedi Master (to whom I shall refer retrospectively as the Guitar God, to distinguish him from Mistress Mouth) who had come up to QA from QC, via Validations (and according to those who came later didn't really know what he was doing with Validations. Not that I'm one to talk about that...), and his predecessor, who left before I properly started blogging and therefore never quite earned a nickname from me, who had come up from the Production line via QC and had got railroaded into the QA Manager's position (very much against her will) by Mr Big, who had decided that she was going to be good at it and, as I may have mentioned before, is one hell of a talker.

Mistress Mouth, on the other hand, has come into this job from other QA positions. She's the real thing, and I have a feeling that it's going to come as a shock to the rest of the company. I had a meeting with her this morning (well - it was intended as a training session, but you know how these things sometimes turn out when you're training your supervisor in existing company procedures - they often find something wrong with it, and you then find yourself spending three times as long as you thought you would whilst they pick holes in the procedure) about the process of approving pre-printed packaging. This is going to lead to changes in the way we go about the whole pre-manufacture process of getting the gear together, unless the Grand Visier, the Business Manager, and Magicke, collectively decide that she's barking up the wrong tree and decide to block her. And if they do, then I hope they can talk fast.

Personally? Well, I have a feeling that she's right. I just don't know how everybody else is going to take it.

What's going on...?

I'm starting to wonder what Anarchist Prime is up to. You see, yesterday, he actually apologised to me. Not once, but twice! For two unrelated incidents! (I can't even remember what the first one was about, but the second related to the intersection between document control and training. The procedure he's operating under involves me scanning documents into the system twice.)

He's never apologised to me before in his life! Even though I personally think he owes me a couple. Is he feeling alright?

I am wondering (and only time will tell) if this relates to the two unrelated incidents where he managed to upset me. The first involved him trying to get his hands on a piece of software that I happen to have on my computer, which I need to do my job, and of which the company refused to supply him with another copy. The second involved him instituting new templates whilst I was off work sick, and then expecting me to know all about them without him actually bothering to tell me. We had 'words' about both incidents. (The first time I had to get Human Resources involved. The second was, professionally speaking, strictly between the two of us, and was witnessed by Mistress Mouth, who happened to be in the office at the time.)

The first one must have come as a bit of a shock to him, because we'd always got on fairly well before that. He probably tried pushing me around, but as I didn't actually disagree with anything he was saying and trying to do and thus didn't make a fuss, he must have assumed that I was a pushover. I have been reliably informed that he referred to me as a "problem" for some time after that (for which I am totally unrepentant.). At the moment, I am wondering if perhaps the second incident made him realise that he has misjudged me. Only time will tell.

Of paper and bacteria

I've dumped Production in the cacky. It has been coming for quite some time now - in fact, I've been waiting for the perfect moment to do it. The perfect moment being, of course, the point in space/time when they are capable of fully appreciating just how much trouble they are in.

What is the trouble? We are building an Aseptic Manufacturing suite. And we have a paper-based system. We can't have paper in the critical manufacturing area the way we could in our old Cleanroom setup (which allows for a very small number of bugs.). And our largest batch document weighs in at 54 pages. Which means that autoclavable paper (which does exist) is far too expensive for the job.

I have to admit, I did see it coming. The switch to Aseptic manufacturing has been on the cards for a long time now. But Production have been far too busy to really appreciate that they have a logistics problem of epic proportions on their hands. I had a meeting with them late yesterday afternoon about it. We managed to outline the problem, but solutions are a long way off.

The real solution would be to computerise the whole shebang. But that is hideously expensive and, as a result, a last resort.

Either way, the word "innovative" was used during the meeting yesterday. I suspect we'll be hearing it a lot. I'm looking forward to finding out what the solution is going to be.

Up to his tricks again

Anarchist Prime is up to his usual tricks again - this time, it's simply a case of sending documents around for review, not bothering to pay any attention to the results, and then getting me to wander around collecting signatures for the final draft. Naturally enough, although most people were content to whack their signatures on the things without paying much attention to the content (a dodgy practice that I, as Document Control Officer deplore, even though it does make life much simpler some times), my friend Majicke quickly flipped through them.

Crime #1: All the clip art he's put through all this policy-level document. He thinks they're pretty. I think it's juvenile. But, being the person he is, he simply ignores everything he doesn't particularly want to hear. Result? I accused him of being juvenile, to his face, and got away with it. Which does nothing at all for my opinion of the man.

Crime #2: The spelling mistakes. I mean, really!

Majicke collared Mistress Mouth on the subject. Her advice, right now, is to simply let it go for this revision, because we need to get these documents in place far too badly not to allow mistakes through, and we'll sort it out in the next revision. Of course, she put it in rather more words than that. I put it even more bluntly to her. We'll sign them off to keep him happy, and change them behind his back later on. With any luck, if we get him well away from the documentation, we'll be rid of him before he causes too much damage. God help us.

Majicke, of course, can't bring herself to do that and is headed for another fight with him. Best of luck to her, too!

Soul woman

I'm trying to avoid letting Mistress Mouth become biased by the experiences of myself and others concerning Anarchist Prime. She's the management layer between him and me, and I am really quite absurdly grateful to her for being that.

As you may have guessed, I don't like him at all. And now that I've got some space between us, and a second opinion available who, as yet, hasn't learned to hate his guts the way the rest of us do, I find myself doing a bit of soul-searching. In other words, have I been unfair to the man?

To be honest, I tend to think that mostly I haven't. I still think that the next mistake he makes will be his last, especially now that we've got somebody else with experience in the Quality department. But I do have to remind myself that he does actually know what he's doing, at least in some areas.

My main point, though, is that I currently can't even think of the man without my face twisting into at least a sneer. And I am struggling to avoid the trap of automatically pushing the documentation he gives me to the back of the to-do list. That would be a dramatically bad mistake. Mistress Mouth, on the other hand, can still work with him without wanting to sneer. I shouldn't like to change that just yet. No point in making her job more difficult than it has to be.

Name change

As you may have noticed, I have changed the title of my blog from "Notes from the life of an evil paperwork fairy" to "The oracle's cave." This is mostly due to my new Jedi Master, Mistress Mouth (I'd offer my deepest apologies to her for that title, but she can talk the hind legs of a donkey...), who keeps calling me The Oracle. And I rather like it.

Superpaperworkfairy

Faster than a slow internet connection! More powerful than Windows 3.1! Can leap tall pieces of equipment with the aide of a stepladder! Yes! It's the Evil Paperwork Fairy! She's back in action!

Things have just descended into 'insane' mode at work. Finally, the refit has got around to doing the paperwork. And the Evil Paperwork Fairy is in hot demand! If this level of running around continues, I reckon I'll lose five to ten kilos. Which wouldn't be a bad thing.

People, of course, all want me at once. The Grand Visier and our Reg Affairs Associate both needed documents from the compactus, which took a bit of fiddling, given that the compactus is currently blocked off by some very large, very heavy pieces of equipment. That problem was solved with the aid of a stepladder, enabling me to climb up onto the very heavy (and basically box-shaped) pieces of equipment and thus down into the compactus. Fortunately, I managed to get back out again without damaging anything.

Then the Leprechaun decided that it was his turn. He's drafted the rest of the Production crew in to the task of document review (a first for a manager around here - usually they all say 'no no no, we've got to do it all ourselves and then expire from terminal stress!'), ostensibly to save me some work (which, lets be honest, it will). It's not, though. It's really just to save himself some work. But hey - I can respect that. Besides - it keeps the rest of Production occupied.

Anarchist Prime has been pretty quiet, though. Apart from helping him use Adobe Acrobat for the first time, he hasn't bothered me all day.

A short-lived reign. We hope.

The more time passes, the clearer it becomes that Anarchist Prime will not be working here for much longer. Every other week, it seems, brings yet more confirmation that he doesn't want to be here, and that he's not decent enough to be honest about it. The latest rumour is that he's been badmouthing the company and the boss behind everybody's backs - something which I would not be at all surprised if Mr Big had heard about. Which is simply added on top of the existing charge (which stands proven, by the way) that he's a bald-faced lier.

The main problem right now, though, is that he's the most experienced person that the Quality department has. The rest of us are hideously inexperienced, and Anarchist Prime's mistakes have only served to highlight our own lack of understanding. It has severely dented the already shaky confidence of the rest of the Quality team.

We've got a new Quality Assurance Manager starting next week (I believe...), and we're all pinning our hopes on her. The poor thing is going to be dropped right into the deep end, and I really hope she can handle it. Because if she can, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Anarchist Prime will get removed.