I have a confession.
I'm not quite sure how to word it, but, I am - well, no, not OCD. That's still a diagnostic term, and it's been inaccurately used to the point of stupidity. Not anal-rententive, either. That sounds... unpleasant. And dated.
My confession, then, is this: I am a fussbudget.
Not, I have to say, about everything. Certainly not housekeeping, but that's a whole other confession. More specifically, I am a fussbudget about labeling.
One of the first things I did once I settled into my position here was to go over the desk and bulletin board and pull down everything, rearrange it, and in most cases, redo it on the computer for posting purposes. I combined and condensed notes, discarded outdated information, reformatted and realigned lines of text, and changed fonts to make notes more distinctive. I also relabelled all the file folders in a nice clean font (Felix Titling, for the font geeks).
Next - replacing the handwritten inserts in the fleet vehicles' key tags with a tidy (if unimaginative) Times New Roman. Clean, clear, uniform, and legible - what's not to love?
More recently, I relabeled the hooks and holders for the fleet vehicles' keys and mileage paperwork. I had to. They were labeled with the punch-style label tape. They were old, battered, hard to read, and not even all the same colour, so I made nice signs for each. I got a few comments and compliments on the fact that it was now so easy to tell which clear acrylic holder was designated for which vehicle.
Today, though, was my moment of realization that I was, indeed, a labeling fussbudget. I took down all the labeling for the fleet vehicles that I had so carefully created a month or six weeks ago... and I replaced it with larger, colour-coded signs. Yes. It's true - blue paper for the blue vehicle, white for one of the white ones, goldenrod for the gold one, grey for silver, and orchid for the second white one. Not only is the holder labeled (a decently-sized 4x4", with 55pt Arial (bolded) for the vehicle names), but so is the hook space, and the fact that the vehicle has a toll road transponder. I have even redone the key tag inserts in the same colour. I draw the line, though, at confessing how much time I spent trying to get the keys to hang so that the coloured insert in the tag would be visible.
And now I'm sitting at my desk, noticing a few squares of paper with handwritten notes on them, a sign that explains a procedure that is no longer followed, a chart that is missing some information I need with some regularity, a phone list that needs updating...
Fussbudget. What can I say?
