ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Various people--ranging from the nice man who keeps the "Kwik Meal 5" cart to one of our part-time employees--have asked me, recently, what it is I do for a living.

Yesterday, I got to ask the head of our department what I will be doing. He doesn't know yet, or at least isn't sure enough to be willing to answer the question. He says he expects to know soon, and that I shouldn't even think about it while I'm on vacation. Easier said than done, but I have people to see, London to show off, a wedding to attend, an honorary nephew, and maybe even a chance to cavort on the Welsh seashore.

After the meeting, Mark sent a memo to the whole department:

I want to inform you of some impending changes regarding how we have been handling the ACM Guide to Computing Literature. Effective August 1, the production (data collection, data entry, indexing, proofing, etc.) of the Guide will be outsourced to a vendor, MCM, Inc., located here in NY.

MCM provides us a number of advantages: 1) they will be able to do Guide for us at a significant savings; 2) because of their extensive influence and contacts throughout the publishing industry, they will be able to have publishers provide us with both more items and more bibliographic information per item; 3) they will relieve us of constantly having to supervise, train, hire, and replace freelancers, which has been taking up a considerable amount of management time.

As part of this arrangement, Walter Allweil has been hired on a full-time basis by MCM to manage the Guide. Walter's experience and knowledge of indexing and bibliographic databases is critical in making this transfer successful. Please join me in wishing Walter the best of luck.

MCM will also need to hire freelance data entry staff, proofreaders, and indexers. They will be talking with our current group of freelancers, who have this expertise, as we phase out our in-house operation over the next few weeks and transfer it completely
to MCM. Carol Wierzbicki will be handling these arrangements.

Mark

Guide is one of the things I work on, and I'm one of the people whose time is supposed to be freed up by this move.

Meanwhile, they're still talking about transferring production of Computing Reviews to another company in the near future, though the September 1 deadline may prove to be yet another mirage. We've spent about four years being told this would occur within six months: controlled fusion, but without the benefits.

So. We're getting rid of the (antiquated) computers I maintain. Guide is being outsourced (their term). CR soon as well.

What that leaves, as far as I can tell, is all-purpose question answering, which I doubt ACM needs me to do full-time. They benefit from it, but there aren't enough questions and problems to need a full-time staffer.

I've been assured, throughout this, that I will keep my job. But I have no idea what I'll be doing here.

And Mark says not to worry. Easy for him to say: he isn't having his job rearranged if not redefined out of existence, and he knows what the plans are, even the ones that they haven't signed on the dotted line about.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Various people--ranging from the nice man who keeps the "Kwik Meal 5" cart to one of our part-time employees--have asked me, recently, what it is I do for a living.

Yesterday, I got to ask the head of our department what I will be doing. He doesn't know yet, or at least isn't sure enough to be willing to answer the question. He says he expects to know soon, and that I shouldn't even think about it while I'm on vacation. Easier said than done, but I have people to see, London to show off, a wedding to attend, an honorary nephew, and maybe even a chance to cavort on the Welsh seashore.

After the meeting, Mark sent a memo to the whole department:

I want to inform you of some impending changes regarding how we have been handling the ACM Guide to Computing Literature. Effective August 1, the production (data collection, data entry, indexing, proofing, etc.) of the Guide will be outsourced to a vendor, MCM, Inc., located here in NY.

MCM provides us a number of advantages: 1) they will be able to do Guide for us at a significant savings; 2) because of their extensive influence and contacts throughout the publishing industry, they will be able to have publishers provide us with both more items and more bibliographic information per item; 3) they will relieve us of constantly having to supervise, train, hire, and replace freelancers, which has been taking up a considerable amount of management time.

As part of this arrangement, Walter Allweil has been hired on a full-time basis by MCM to manage the Guide. Walter's experience and knowledge of indexing and bibliographic databases is critical in making this transfer successful. Please join me in wishing Walter the best of luck.

MCM will also need to hire freelance data entry staff, proofreaders, and indexers. They will be talking with our current group of freelancers, who have this expertise, as we phase out our in-house operation over the next few weeks and transfer it completely
to MCM. Carol Wierzbicki will be handling these arrangements.

Mark

Guide is one of the things I work on, and I'm one of the people whose time is supposed to be freed up by this move.

Meanwhile, they're still talking about transferring production of Computing Reviews to another company in the near future, though the September 1 deadline may prove to be yet another mirage. We've spent about four years being told this would occur within six months: controlled fusion, but without the benefits.

So. We're getting rid of the (antiquated) computers I maintain. Guide is being outsourced (their term). CR soon as well.

What that leaves, as far as I can tell, is all-purpose question answering, which I doubt ACM needs me to do full-time. They benefit from it, but there aren't enough questions and problems to need a full-time staffer.

I've been assured, throughout this, that I will keep my job. But I have no idea what I'll be doing here.

And Mark says not to worry. Easy for him to say: he isn't having his job rearranged if not redefined out of existence, and he knows what the plans are, even the ones that they haven't signed on the dotted line about.