Essays and ephemera
If there’s one thing consistent about Metra, it’s the inconsistencies. Trains are often delayed, but it’s more than just an inconsistent schedule. The behaviors of conductors varies from train to train. I wanted to learn why some conductors, or “trainmen”, enforce the quiet car while others do not. To do this, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained the latest trainmen training materials.
Continue reading “If You Hear Something, Say Something: Metra’s Quiet Car Policy”
Your writing is full of bullshit. All your emails, blogs, and reports are full of unnecessary jargon, weasel words, and platitudes. And it’s all because you’re afraid of being bold and direct.
At least that’s what Josh Bernoff believes.
And according to him, you can change all of that. Bernoff’s book Writing Without Bullshit calls you out on your bullshit, but provides succinct and actionable ways to change not only how you write, but how you communicate.
Television viewers in Illinois have been bored for over a year with ads for the 2018 governor’s race. The latest ad from Governor Rauner is as milquetoast as our governor.
Being a consultant, my office changes on a somewhat frequent basis. For someone who is a creature of habit, this forces me to change my habits. In downtown Chicago, there’s a lot of permutations as to how I can go to and from the train station to my current office. Going home however, I always walk west on Jackson.
When was the last time you used Microsoft Word 2003? A decade ago? Longer?
According to a recent FOIA request of mine, the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department is using Word 2003 files as recently as 2015.
As someone who does a lot of content migration projects between technology platforms, I’m no stranger to seeing files in the Word 97-2003 format. These are easily identified by their file extension ending in DOC.
You may remember DOC files. Basically, if you used Word prior to 2007 everything by default saved as a DOC file extension. In Word 2007, Microsoft pivoted from using their proprietary DOC extension, to a friendlier cross-software extension DOCX.
If you’re not a digital hoarder or you updated software in the last decade, the chances you have a file with a DOC extension on your computer right now are pretty low.
What’s interesting is that this file was obviously created in 2015 and is still a DOC file.
I’m guessing there might be an old FOIA template that was created that no one has taken the time to go click Save As and change the extension to DOCX.
This begs the question: what version of Microsoft Word is the DuPage County Sheriff’s Department currently using and how many of these DOC files are there? Sounds like another FOIA request to me.