[Wasn't there a Barbra Streisand movie of the same title? If there is, perhaps there is a corresponding soundtrack piece that may be appropriate here.]
I warn you now, this is work-related and will likely bore you to tears. Read at your own risk....
There is a thing in my work life called "document review." It is every bit as boring as it sounds. But make no mistake -- document review in the old school sense of flipping through paper files, digging through banker's boxes, sustaining flipping-threatening paper cuts, feeling the dusty grit on your hands and in your nasal passages is, well, just so much better than doing document review in front of a computer screen. Allow me to explain.
When there is litigation or an investigation and you are tasked with fact finding, one of the ways you attempt to locate said facts is through -- yes, document review. The people who are in possession of these documents (particularly one's personal desk files) are generally not exactly pleased when people such as myself show up, because it means they or their company or both are in a bit of hot water. So they point at a file cabinet or a row of filings cabinets or, most horrific of all, a warehouse of archived files, and say, "Well, there might be something in there." And so it begins -- looking through page after page for a document that might be related to your particular matter and flagging them for some other poor soul to image the documents for viewing at a later date.
It is, quite frankly, about as close to manual labor as I get at work. You stand on your feet all day (document review often takes place at short notice, so you have no comfy shoes on hand), you often review docs while they are still in the box so your back is at odd angles and quickly tires, paper cuts are not a laughing matter, and your dust allergies will come out in full force, but you just might bond with some of your colleagues who are similarly situated.
I think my most extreme document review example was a few years ago near the Gulf Coast in Texas at a large manufacturing facility. Individuals at our client had been asked to identify any possible sources of document collection at each of their plants and we were then dispatched to exotic locations like this. As I recall (which may be more extreme in retrospect), it was early fall, but still in the high 90s there with equally high humidity. Mmmm, sticky! We had visited a few of the trailer type buildings on the outskirts of the complex and were down to our last location, a numbered building. Okay, we give, where is it? Ummm.... Shuffling of feet, hands in pockets, and a sly smile. "That one." Um, That One was kind of like a very small metal Morton-type pole barn with an overhead door that was in the middle of nowhere. Hardhat and, if I recall correctly, safety glasses were required to get to it. Well, what boring accountant doesn't want to wear a hard hat and feel dangerous? Um, this one? (Seriously, hat head on top of crazy humid weather bad hair day?) But for the sake of the client, on they went and out we went to That One.
That One was a storage place for machinery parts for the plant. That One also had no power, including lighting, so in order for us to review the contents of the two pallets of documents, we had to drag said pallets a bit closer to the overhead door so we could see. (No lamps on the hardhats, alas.) Of course, that made it easier for us to be totally alarmed by the salamanders (or were they lizards? I always get my amphibians and reptiles confused) literally emerging from the boxes and running away. (Apparently my appearance with hard hat and bad hair day was as frightening as I had imagined!) It was an interesting day.
My first document review in Germany was tame by comparison, though still a bit interesting. I was doing the document review in Cologne, Germany with a colleague of mine. The document collections that had been identified were located in the basement of a building. Always a fascinating start. To get to the archive room, you walked down a long narrow hallway that had a few narrow metal barred locking doors that I swear looked like prison doors. Our host joked that that was were they sent people who weren't performing well. Not so funny. At the end of the hall, you put a key in the lock and enter what I can best describe as a boiler room. Lots of pipes and rumbling and you are walking on what seems to be some kind of catwalk with linoleum placed over its grate. Hollow steps.... I swore that at any minute we would fall through to the dark depths below and alligators would eat us alive (where is my hard hat when I need it?!). But we didn't. (And Sarah seemed to enjoy the experience. More on her later, but see the many additions to the Sarah Palin photo album on my Facebook page.) And then we finally entered the document archive room, which paled by comparison and, I must admit, was rather clean and pest free in comparison to That One.
Here's hoping for old school document review in the former East Germany, as I suspect that could easily rival the Gulf.
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