Filing: some points and notes

Filer's nightmare.

We at the Mansion have a lot on our plates. It’s not all swearing and snarking here. The hard-nosed world of business is something that we have to treat with as much care as that of the soft-snout slobbery puppy dog. Specifically, we thought we’d get onto the unaddressed issue of filing. Yes, that’s right.

And so it goes… For those of you not in the know, or perhaps those who think hitherto that they are, the below is for you. Filing essentially involves two major areas of file organisation, divisible into one of either (i) inter-file or (ii) inner-file. The first is the sorting of different objects that constitute a whole, distinguishable body distinct from other objects of a very similar or very different kind.

The second… OK, we may be slightly disingenuous here as the latter could be sub-divided into entrance and ordering, which could open the second area into perhaps two whole areas. However, we think the two-areas distinction still holds up when we take note of the fact that the act of entering paper (or what have you) into the file is so great a part of the filing process — not only of time, but also of energy. We know we’ll be preaching to the converted when we ask: did you ever notice how you get past that 700-page mark, entering pages and some strange cramps and aches begin in muscles that you didn’t even know were muscles?!… Yeah? Recognise that? God, that’s a bitch, are we right? We sure know Paul from accounts knows the ol’seadog! (See you next week for lager-lager, Paulio?)

Of course we’re right. Now, the entering part needs emphasis. We think it has been undersold in the promotion of filing, its advertisement in culture generally, and in press commentary on the issue.

Check out those staggered organisational tags.

Let’s paint a particular example to make our point. Say you have, ooh, 89 Office Depot-brand, 30 sleeve, clear plastic A4 files, with blue flexi-plastic cover (including removable bind label). You’ve also got into each has to go, in a specific order, 25 various-coloured printed A4-pages to constitute 89 booklets.

How are you to go about placing these pages into the files? A pertinent question in the field of file entering, indeed!

Now, you don’t have all the space in the world, here. In fact space is limited to a small-sized office desk, around two metres squared. You also have to be wary of the folding. You can roll and unfurl each page to ease the passage of entering. Or, you can slightly lean the edges in to ease said passage. The perils of getting fold-lines in your pages need not be extensively considered here, so suffice to say that we must be vigilant at all times.

Thumbs up, indeed!

So the first option that’s out is sorting all the booklets into respective individual order, and then beginning the entering, there’s simply no space! (One page at a time increases the risk of fold-lines f/y/i.)

Second option: enter the pages page one into booklet one, page one into booklet two, right through to the last page, then begin page two into booklet two, booklet three, and so on. Now that’s just way too slow, there’s the opening and closing of the files for each single one. Completely inoperable and inefficient!

The third option: enter all the pages into one booklet-file, then move onto the next booklet. Here the issues become where to place the files and the entering pages according to seated or standing position… the height differential between the enterer and their desk… whether you’re a right- or left-handed enterer… and anything else one can recall to think.

Now, what order you are required to enter makes huge sways upon whether you can enter page-by-page or conglomerate two pages back-to-back and enter them into one sleeve. It’s either a stroke of luck or an inspiration business tactic (we’re not sure which yet) if you can, because your efficiency savings are going to be mind-blowing — the sort that’d have Paul celebrating in ways we all know we should keep out of forums like this. What’s more, your rivals will be seething that they, unlike you, couldn’t reach these heady heights.

We hope this goes someway to redressing the balance in the filing field. It’s an issue that reaches far-out from the specific profession and into our culture widely. We’re excited at the news that a think-tank may be starting-up to lobby the Lithuanian parliament for a monument to be erected in each township as a movement into file-entering becoming one of the three national sports. Hopefully we can take the journey further from the inroads being made on the continent, to the power hubs of Reading, Swindon, and perhaps even Redditch.