Random Analytica

This is a weird one, even by my standards.

I have bought a typewriter over the weekend. It is a Lemair Deluxe 850TA. It comes with a travel case (so I guess I’m travelling at some stage). It comes with an additional ribbon. It is ancient like me.

I’m going to practice thank-you letters before I start writing my mefloquine memoir. No one will read my memoirs, but I don’t care. I write for myself these days.

On my wall sits a photo of a beautiful young actor. Dakota Fanning. I ripped the page out of magazine a day before I get hospitalised in March. It has occupied a place on my memory board for months. I don’t know why I do some things, but they all tend to turn out in the end. Vogue Australia has titled this cover ‘Full Bloom’.

As I wonder who to thank first, I look at my memory board and I am taken back to early the early 2010s and a package I received from Naomi Bloom.

I’m still doing Workforce Planning at this stage, but I am also thinking about exiting the industry. Naomi is a legend in Human Resources. On the cusp of retiring. Although I have never met her you get a real sense of who she is via her online presence. She is small and smart. Rather than pursue a career in astro-physics in the 1960s she writes one of the first programs for Human Resources. Before that is even a thing. Back then anything to do with technology was for men only. She has an amazing career in this male dominated hegemony. When she retires in 2016 the internet is full of interest and kudos. She writes still. Her most recent piece is on the importance of memory. How they sustain you in the tough times. How true!

When I meet her on Twitter, I am trying to convince my final workforce planning organisation to use its data in a much smarter way. I am trying to embolden them to use Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) rather than their dated technology and processes. I’m not having much success.

I must have lamented to Naomi Bloom at some stage because after that she sends me a copy of her book on the subject which she wrote in the 1980’s/90’s. I go through it with some amazement. It is her Magnus Opus. Her little bit of history. The technology she talks about in her book becomes standard practice across the world of Human Resource Management in the decades that follow. It is an amazing piece of writing which gets lost in the rush of history. She also sent a copy of her book to one of the young up-and-comers in the industry. I’m sure his copy has a proud place on his bookshelf.

Her book and short letter come as a surprise. They are a tonic. When she mails these books, the world is in a hurry, but she has made time to send them all the same.

Those small acts of kindness throughout my struggle have kept me going. Naomi Bloom, you probably don’t even remember sending that book to me but thank-you all the same. Your book is currently in storage, but I am looking forward to returning it to a bookshelf soon. It is a part of my history and a good memory.

Good memories sustain you in the tough times.

Updates

14th Oct 2019: Naomi kindly commented on Twitter about my post. I had to add the Magnus Opus part. A new memory!