SUBMISSION TO THE MAD HATTER

A WELSH ASSOCIATION PROPOSAL

 

In a college as widespread and
enterprising as Douglas, there is
constant pressure, from faculty, staff,
departments, and the Library, for all
facilities to be available everywhere,
on the specious grounds that this will
make life easier for the employees, and
lead to better quality instruction for
the students. Thus, each department
would like its own Xerox machine. Every
campus would prefer a separate mailing
address. All faculty want typewriters,
if not secretaries.

The universe is not organised on this
basis, however. Logic teaches us that
centralization of facilities provides a
more cost-effective service, and results
in fewer hassles with the Department of
Education, at the expense of some small
delays at the local level. For this
reason, the College has only 1 mailing
address, 1 print shop, 1 A. V. production
unit, 1 courier, and limited numbers of
copiers, etc.

In this laudable endeavour, however, we
have failed to apply the principle as
fully as possible. At least one major
area remains decentralized and wasteful
of time and money. This is the activity
of pencil-sharpening. All over the Colieg
there are expensive and time-consuming
little hand-operated pencil-sharpeners,
constantly whizzing around. Virtually
all employees of the College (except
Deans) from time to time have been
observed to sharpen their own pencils.
Now it takes about 30 seconds to sharpen
a pencil, and a sharpened pencil becomes
unsharp quite quickly. Assuming that
each College employee (except Deans)
sharpens two pencils per day, that the
average faculty salary is $10.00 per hour,
and the average staff salary is $5.00
per hour, it can be seen how rapidly

the cost rises, and why we have no money
for books, or secretaries.

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Worse. Sometimes pencils break in the
sharpeners, due to untrained operators,
and have to be re-sharpened, with a
further waste in time. Line-ups develop
at the sharpeners. And because the
machines are relatively low-level
technology, short pencils are often
thrown away, because of the complex
problems involved in sharpening them.
Waste. All waste.

In an effort to remedy this situation,
we propose the College move, with all
due speed, to centralized pencil-sharpening.
An IBM 320 electronic pencil-sharpener
could be purchased, or leased, with a
capacity for sharpening 10 pencils at
once and automatic eraser replacement.
This machine could be placed in the
print shop where it would be efficiently
controlled with limited access. (Deans'
secretaries would receive their own
key.) If desired, a second, slightly
inferior model could be available on
reserve at the New Westminster Library
A. V. desk.

To make the system work properly, each @®
employee (except Deans) would be

required to forward all used pencils to the
Campus Administrator, twice weekly.

The Campus Administrator would arrange

for their transportation via the College
Courier to the print shop, which

would sharpen them and re-ship to each
Campus Administrator a supply of

sharpened pencils, every third Tuesday.
(This date is selected in order to provide
employees with sufficient time to meet

the Mad Hatter deadline.) Priorities

would be determined by the Manager of

Media Resources, subject to review by

the Executive Committee.

A five-part form would be completed
by the employee, with each shipment:
Salmon for his own file; Pink to be
retained by the Campus Administrator;
Green for the Print Shop; Blue to be
returned with the shipment; Yellow for
the Bursar's Office for reports to
Victoria.