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It's always summer in ( A Cheaper World. )

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I picked this up a few weeks ago from a networked colleague, though I've been aware of it for quite a while, and I thought I'd share it with you guys in the interests of professional information-trading and of getting a few lulz.

In 1890, fresh from a successful fundraising campaign (a "subscription canvass" as they were usually known then) on behalf of the not-yet-extant University of Chicago, Frederick Gates was asked to advise a colleague on tactics. The result was a memo which acquired the title "Keep absolutely and serenely good-humored" despite that being a misread in the text. Gates outlined in nineteen points the basic structure of fundraising as we know it today; even in the information age, not a lot of what he says needs much adaptation to be relevant. And the combination of good natured faith in humanity, total sneakiness, and mild cynicism never fails to amuse me.

Various versions of this can be found online, but this one comes from the archives of the University of Chicago, who ought to know.

( The following memorandum was written by Mr. Frederick Gates... )

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So, when you do renovation in a downtown building, you have to register a Certificate Of Insurance, or COI, with the building office, proving your construction company is insured. Last time we had renovators in, tracking and registering the COIs was my job, but I have since changed jobs.

Our renovation guys did not know this.

So I get an email from Tony with the construction company, who says "Here are the COIs!" I forward the email to my former Overboss, with the note "I think this probably should go to you guys to handle." My former Overboss says "Okay! I see they have the construction company name on them. I'll send them to Tony."

Former Overboss has, I should point out, been doing this for fifteen years and apparently still doesn't know how it works. I have done this ONCE and know what needs to be done. Also, Tony's name as SENDER was clearly visible in the forward.

So I wrote back and said, no, Tony is the one who sent them to me, you need to send them to the building office. Apparently that's too complicated for him; he sends them to the guy who has the job I would have had if I hadn't got this one, copying me, and says "Can you please make sure Tony has these and does what he needs with them?"

NOOOO TONY DOESN'T NEEEEEEED THEM HE SENT THEM TO YOU BECAUSE YOU DO

And of course the new guy emails me asking what to do, because he's never done this at all and doesn't know what a COI is.

This is the point at which I got up from my cubicle, walked across the hall, leaned in my boss's office, and said, "I'm so glad you hired me and saved me from [Former Overboss]. I just want to say thank you."

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This evening I was messing around with icons, prepping for tomorrow's Photo Post, when I realised that in Windows 7 you can't turn auto-arrange off, except on the desktop.

I thought I might be able to find a patch for this on a Windows forum. It's not hugely annoying, not annoying enough to try any of the very dodgy stuff I found, but it is kind of irksome. Anyway, no dice on the fix, but I came across the following awesome exchange:

Poster #1: "So in folder views you can no longer drag items around to rearrange them. Basically, pretty much nobody used this."
Poster #2: No one use? But around million people have visited this thread.
Poster #1: It is not my statement! This is the statement of an MS employee working on the Explorer Team.
Poster #2: Please give us their names and telephones, i have to talk, to hardtalk.

Next time I complain, I'm not just going to talk. I'M GOING TO HARDTALK.