Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Our new assignment etc. and document prep


There are many things I do not understand about people in leadership positions, especially those who are following the business plan.  Our supervisor has been here since midday Monday and most of what he said was that his sector was down in production.  I guess this was said to make us feel like we caused it?  Ever since we got here, he has had some problem or other with our work and little seems to please him.  He will not take no for an answer and today he met with the head archivist and other staff to negotiate for the option to humidify the York records and any other records that need to be humidified.  He is also talking about getting another missionary couple here to be trained by us and I wonder how he is going to do that because when he first arrived on Monday he said that very few seniors were opting to go out as missionaries and that the pool of people had dried up to the point that no one wants to go on a Family History Mission like ours. 
He wants to buy the cradle and there is no name for a maker of it so the help were called in to see who could remember when, where ,who or how it was made.  Consensus of opinion said that it was made by a staff member who could make anything out of metal and so the cradle was born.  So its fate is still up in the air.  Manuel wants to send it to Salt Lake City to see if there is anyone out there who could make a similar kind of thing.  I should imagine that there is someone even here in Augusta who is good with steel, glass and tightly wound springs who could come up with a similar object, such as this cradle.  I suspect that it was made by some commercial manufacturer because Salt Lake sent  springs for it so it must have been a commercial venture in order for the FHC to have springs to send to replace those that had been worn out.  I found the box of springs sent from the FHC as replacements for the ones that wore out in usage by earlier missionaries.  I guess staff come and staff go and the memories of what was done leaves with the departing staff…….happens all the time.
Our task, should you accept it Mr. Phelps (Mission impossible), is to produce one image every 6 seconds which comes out to 19,600 images for one week of 35 hours.   If it wasn’t so ludicrous ………………    We will work at our own pace, and do the best we can, but 19,600 images out of paper that is falling apart and you have to find all the pieces that go together and do that and snap a picture in 6 seconds  is out of the question.  Tomorrow, we get to learn how to humidify papers…..we are learning a lot on this mission.
Yesterday was a banner day – Karen Despain of the Prescott Newspaper called me up and interviewed me about my slot canyon quilt that is in the 100     Quilts for 100 Years exhibit in Tucson.  I was quite flattered that she called me up.  It will be interesting to see how she translates our conversation.
Although our supervisor took us to eat at Applebees, I really would rather have had lunch with Anne.

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