Halloween Party

This week end I will be hosting my first ever Halloween party for my nieces and nephews. I recently moved into my new house which is sitting on over an acre in rural Buckeye. I have always wanted a large house on more property so I can host parties such as this. My brothers and sisters have always been the ones to have parties and I felt it was time that I did my share. I am looking forward to having the kids dress up in their costumes, bob for apples, carve pumpkins and roast hot dogs and marshmallows on a campfire. I am very excited and cannot wait for it to all come together.

I will keep you posted on how the party came out.

Records Staging Training

This week I sat through 48 hours of Records Management Staging and Archiving Storage Training. The government requires all agencies to keep records for a certain period of time based on subject matter. Some records are only kept a few months, whereas other records are kept up to 56 years. After sitting through this training I have to wonder where in the world are all these records going too? Just in our office alone I see hundreds of thousands of documents created for many court cases. Times that number by the number of offices throughout the country and it is extremely mind boggling. I envision large buildings spread out throughout the country filled from first floor to top floor with boxes. One of the reasons for such an organized staging activity is so that if an organization needs to recall the item from storage it can be done quickly and efficiently. In my prior job with the government, I sent a request to recall a file from staging and it took six months to get it back.

Theresa

Outreach Programs

I have been heavily involved lately in the outreach programs offered at my internship. We make ourselves available to travel to businesses to give training on the prevention of discrimination. This training covers age, race, sex, gender and also national origin training. Most businesses and employees do not understand what is or is not discrimination.I am still amazed at the number of people who think discrimination does not exist in the workplace. There are many companies who turn the other cheek when claims of discrimination are made. Fortunately, we are here to curb those businesses. It can cost a business millions of dollars if they are found guilty of disrcimination.

Theresa

Slow Week at Work

Well it has been a long week here at my internship, but not because of too much work; it is because of having to catch up with the smaller projects because a lack of real work. This week was focused on learning how to send closed cases to the National Record Center for archiving. We had to go through hundreds of folders, paper by paper to make sure we were not staging duplicates and other documents that do not require archiving. What a pain in the butt. Tedious and time consuming. We also had a chance to clean up the database before the new fiscal year gets into full swing. However, one thing that was not worked on was the budget. We are working off of a continuing resolution and money is super tight. Everything from computers to paper clips needs to be examined for need before it can be purchased. Soon a real budget could be passed and the purse strings may get a little looser.

Having a great time learning legal work and how the process flows. Keep posted as I will have more riveting information later as time progresses. Until then, be safe.

Theresa

A New Dawning

Ah.......the rise of a new Fiscal Year. More budgetary headaches, less money, the need for more stuff...the fun has just begun. As I start out a new fiscal year with my organization, we are tasked to do more with less money. As usual fashion over the past decade, we are starting out with a temporary continuing resolution to carry us through until Congress can decide how much allowance they should give us. Reminds me of the days of dad opening his wallet and deciding how much green I could have. Unfortunately, not enough green at this job means that cuts have to be made. Paper is less and less so copying is decreased. Electronic filing is now the way to go.

Even though we are short on funds, other companies that we deal with are not. They still slay us with mounds and mounds of paperwork. This year starts out looking like I will become a reviewer of documents for a short while. A good chance to really learn what the case is about. I look forward to the future here (with or without funding.)

Theresa