Office artifacts

I don't know how it is in other offices, but here at Arhoolie, each of my predecessors has left behind a section of files of supposedly useful stuff that never gets touched by subsequent folks. As I am tidying up my office, and notating things so that the crew here can do what needs to be done when I am gone next week, I find myself chuckling over stuff that I am discovering: stuff that should have been tossed out years before I even got here, but no one knew if the hidden secret to selling records was to be found there, so it was duly saved in a box. As much as I like to think that I am leaving something that can easily be taken over, I am realistic. What seems perfectly logical to me may make not a shred of sense to the rest of the world, and I can explain it until I am blue in the face, and they still will not see. Undoubtedly some of the artifacts of the Keilholtz years will be here as long as Arhoolie is around, which should be for a very long time. I suppose one could construct a case study in the eccentrics known as record publicists just looking at the remnants of our various tenures here.

It all makes me wonder what the weight of utterly useless paper is in the average office. How much stuff gets kept for mysterious reasons? If we ever have paperless offices, what will they have done with it all? I think we would clog the recycling centers and the landfills as well if it were all dumped on them at once.

I am doing what I can to eliminate the useless detritus of three publicity directors, but I am probably being overly-cautious as well. I imagine in a few years, someone around here will wonder, "why do we still have this? Hmmm. I don't have time to go through it, so I will just keep it here." Even in the computer database I am reluctant to actually delete people. "But what if they show up at another publication in a few years? We should have a history!"

OK, Keilholtz, but explain why you have a code for dead people? Will they be writing reviews after the Resurrection? Well, no, but if a journalist is doing a story on a writer and asks us for stuff, it is the easiest way to find information. And how many times has that happened? Just leave me alone. I like my system.