Dispatch Claus

This year instead of signing tedious cards for everyone I went to the dollar store and bought a boatload of funny keychains to put in everyone's stockings and had a few extra left over. It was fun trying to match up the phrase to the person. Like one that I particularly love, I had actually given to a trooper as a joke a few months ago. It said "Chaos, panic and disorder. My job is done here." Totally fit him to a tee! There were other fun ones, like "I *am* listening to you. Don't you see me yawning?" And "Give me a minute and I'll find a way to ignore you." Befitting of so many of us was "I don't have time to be this busy!" So I had great fun spreading them around last night. And then today I had to go to Costco to get my homemade pumpkin pie (yes, it's home made if you add the ice cream or whipped topping on it at home!), and I came across a table top cross cut shredder with a pencil sharpener in it. Well, since they tool Ollie away from us (our big huge shredder they gave to the detectives), I figured it would be a good "comm center" gift so we can still feel like we have control over some of the stuff that is in there. That actually is an interesting dispatch story. We were told not to shred anymore and they put a barrell out in the hall where we were supposed to put our stuff to shred. Then the developmentally disabled folks came around and put it into a truck and drove it 20 miles up the road where they incinerate it. Now, my concern here was that criminal histories are supposed to be destroyed when no longer in use. And who is to say they won't some day put that stuff in the truck and they drive down the road only to find they forgot to secure the back door... Meanwhile all those criminal histories and driving records are scattered all over the freeway. So I brought this up and they told me it was required that we comply with this as we are to employ the developmentally disabled. Yes, but not at the risk of violating the laws regarding disimination of priviledged information. The way I understand it, a criminal history is not supposed to linger any longer than the information is being used. So they finally decided that it wasn't such a hot idea and that there was indeed room for a huge mistake, so they put a secured canister in the hall and now they come to the premises to shred for us. Okay - fine. That's better, but I gotta say, sometimes I want to shred a check stub or something like that, and I'm not leaving that for anyone else to do but myself. Thus the reason I'm buying my own desktop shredder for the comm center to use. Am I too anal? Perhaps so.....I know several people who weren't too happy about me bringing up these issues, that's for sure! Dina

Dina, what a great idea about the keychains!! They sound perfect!! especially for the people I work with.. I never would have thought of that! I can't beleive they didn't want information like that shredded.. all to save a few bucks I guess, I am glad you spoke up and made them see how dumb that choice was!! We have a folder for all shred stuff and the office staff takes care of it for us. Brianna