I’ve determined that most of you other bloggers out there either don’t currently work in a typical cube farm-type company, or are just a little unfamiliar with how life in these adult hamster cages work. With that in mind, I’ve decided to make my transition from the round peg of a freelancer to the square block of corporate America an educational experience. This way, the young readers can determine if the rectangular path is one they want to pursue or avoid. Others who already live in the Office Space world can sympathize and we can swap stories. That, and nobody likes to hear others complain about their job all the time.

Now that I’m on board full time, I’m now subject to all of the über-cool standards in the 479-page Employee Handbook. Before, I could pass it off as “well, I’m only here part time, so I don’t really have the time for…”, but no more. The half-assery is ends now!

Today’s lesson: the bliss that is Document Management
All of us in The Company have been tasked with specially tagging and intentionally naming all the documents we produce, whether electronic or physical, not only from here on, but retrofitting past work as well. This idea is great for final versions of files, or items that have been printed and need to be stored and recalled. There is obviously a need for such a system, now that everyone has a computer and now has the ability to create documents. The big hole in the ground we call “Archives” is a testament to that. However, this sadistic plan goes even further. The scope of this task encompasses drafts of documents, emails, in some cases Instant Messages, and, here’s the kicker, images.

Think about every file you create or store on your computer. Every. Single. One. Any graphic you save, or snippet of code, or idea you compose. Now imagine having to tag it in the meta (?) with accurate names and helpful contextual information, such as date or location where you found it, or maybe even the job that you may or may not use said verbiage on. Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it?

I know how to use meta tags in an image, but for every image I create, I now have to tag drafts and finals, and name them a certain way, by department and date, then filename. That should make life for our programmers even more fun: rather than my typical logo.gif, the name will be CompanyLogo_PMS287_Engineering_10_07_07.gif – I think. This nomenclature obviously is not geared for artists and/or those with a short attention span. To be honest, I couldn’t even finish reading the document that describes the naming convention before I moved on to other things. Ooh! A shiny button!

Wait, what was I talking about?

It seems the new majority of my time will be spent retrofitting all of my old documents, whether real or imagined, with helpful file names and meta tags. Just in case something happens to me, I believe. The honeymoon is over before its begun.

Maybe I’ll requisition a whole new computer and go through this little dog and pony show as I copy my files over one at a time. It would have to be easier than retrofitting five years’ worth of images and drafts and paper sketches.

Let the fun begin!