April 8, 1987
“Know Where Everyone Is, and When They Will Return”, “Week by Week Control of All Your Projects For Up To One Year”. These are the promises in a catalog that crossed my desk recently.
All of this can be done with the use of magnetic charts and felt tip pens according to the company selling these office organizational materials. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the charts could be adapted for home use and we would know where everyone is and the status of all our repair projects.
In a way I already have part of the system working. It’s on my refrigerator door and consists of all the schedules handed out by sports teams, bands, clubs and social groups.
I even have the little magnets, except mine look like pieces of food, butterflies, etc. instead of the business-like shapes in the catalog. The rest of my system consists of a message board and a felt tip pen for updating schedules.
But how do you make it all work? As of yet no one has sorted through said schedules before they have become outdated the the only note on the message board is the telephone number of the local pizza shop. Can the chart set up the car pools and make sure rehearsal will actually be over at 4?
I wonder if the chart that handles projects is able to foresee little items like the plumbing backing up, the hinge on the storm door sticking and the light fixture breaking. Can it slide these projects in among the others and see to it they all get done?
No, I’m afraid it will never work. In no time the colored markers will have been borrowed for an art display, the magnets for a science project and the beautiful squared off cart will be used for tick tack toe!
GCB