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In a rare mood...
Mar. 22nd, 2009 02:40 pmOne of the marked trends that I dislike about people who devote their professional lives to quality is their steadfast devotion to the idea that you can continuously improve quality.
Not that there's anything wrong with keeping a weather eye out for opportunities to do so, but generally speaking, the best such people can accomplish is to complicate procedures until they become unrecognizable, and then create mountains of paper certifying that this, that, and the other thing were duly performed (and then auditing the process from time to time, thereby orphaning even more trees).
Perhaps one of the reasons I dislike the trend is that I see it in myself, from time to time. I am often quick to blame myself for not catching various "gotchas" that crop up on occasion. Take, for example, this editing job I'm working on.
Who would have expected that the translator of this apparently random collection of consonants, vowels, and punctuation - bless his wicked, semiliterate, sloppy, and of-questionable-parentage hide - would, in addition to the many insults already offered in his final product, omit three pages of text?
As if I have nothing else to do?
Of course, what I should have done - in keeping with good ISO 9001 practice, as well as common sense - was check the document given to me for editing back when I received it, so that this issue could be raised in a timely manner, and not during the weekend, on the eve of when the job is due.
It's hard to get a good sense of righteous outrage going when you have to temper it with your own shortcomings. Grrr.
* * * The kids will be coming over in a couple of hours for dinner. I am seriously considering taking a nap in the meantime.
Cheers...
Not that there's anything wrong with keeping a weather eye out for opportunities to do so, but generally speaking, the best such people can accomplish is to complicate procedures until they become unrecognizable, and then create mountains of paper certifying that this, that, and the other thing were duly performed (and then auditing the process from time to time, thereby orphaning even more trees).
Perhaps one of the reasons I dislike the trend is that I see it in myself, from time to time. I am often quick to blame myself for not catching various "gotchas" that crop up on occasion. Take, for example, this editing job I'm working on.
Who would have expected that the translator of this apparently random collection of consonants, vowels, and punctuation - bless his wicked, semiliterate, sloppy, and of-questionable-parentage hide - would, in addition to the many insults already offered in his final product, omit three pages of text?
As if I have nothing else to do?
Of course, what I should have done - in keeping with good ISO 9001 practice, as well as common sense - was check the document given to me for editing back when I received it, so that this issue could be raised in a timely manner, and not during the weekend, on the eve of when the job is due.
It's hard to get a good sense of righteous outrage going when you have to temper it with your own shortcomings. Grrr.
Cheers...
