The reliquary

I've just started working on translating our archives into electronic format. Since the archive system I'm building bears no relation to our current set-up, however, and I have not yet obtained the space and filing cabinets I require to do the job properly, I'm starting in the areas where I don't have to reorganise anything.

To be more specific about it, I'm starting with the superseded master documents. That's right - our old SOPs. And, since the company is about 20 years old and run by people who don't like throwing anything out, there are some very interesting artefacts in the SOP archive.

The one I uncovered this morning was our original staff training record. The one that was written 20-odd years ago, when there were a grand total of two people working in the company. And one of them was part time.

I showed it to Mistress Mouth, who is in the middle of trying not to stress about things here (it's pretty frantic out there, really), so she could have something to smile about. I've showed her a couple of other things from the early days so far, and she's actually quite impressed with our early system. It's small, certainly, but it says everything that needs to be said.

The staff training record, for example, briefly covers the ongoing educational history of the company's only two employees (as it was then). It's two pages long, at 1.5 spacing. It says absolutely everything that needs to be said about the two employees in question. And, at the time, they were the only two employees that mattered in the eyes of the regulators.

Mistress Mouth commented to me that the current, fairly impressive, state of our quality system (yes, there are gaps, but not as many as she was afraid there'd be) makes a lot more sense when viewed in the light of the company's early documented history. She also told me that the documentation I've showed her was exactly right for a very small company, even in today's climate.

It puts things into perspective.