The Personnel File

The undersigned has received a notice that his chair, a swivelling oak chair acquired by the Publisher in 1974 and in continuous editorial service since, has been tagged for collection under the "Ergonomic Refresh, Phase II" programme. A yellow tag reading "END OF LIFE" has been affixed to its left arm. The undersigned notes that the chair is older than the programme, the policy, and the department administering it, and has outlasted three of each. He requests the tag be removed and the chair recorded as a fixture.

The undersigned has been asked to judge the office costume contest on 30 October in a new category, "Best Dictionary Entry," in which staff will appear dressed as catalogued Subjects. The undersigned has been advised that at least two colleagues intend to attend as the Boeing 747 and one as a wheel of Parmigiano. The undersigned declines to judge. He reminds the publication that Subjects are catalogued on the basis of the Subject, and that a person in a cardboard fuselage is not the Subject.

The undersigned has received the Q4 planning template, which requires each member of staff to set three measurable "key results." The template has been pre-populated for the undersigned with the suggestion "Reduce grievances filed by 50% quarter over quarter." The undersigned regards this as an attempt to resolve the grievances by reducing their number rather than their causes. He has entered, as his key result, "Grievances resolved: one," and awaits the first.

The undersigned has observed that the Circulation Manager's delivery animal has been issued a building access badge, worn on a lanyard, and that the badge functions. The undersigned's own badge, as noted in Grievance No. 64, does not. The undersigned takes no position on the animal, which has been courteous. He takes a firm position on the sequence in which credentials have been issued, and asks to be informed what the burro submitted that he did not.

The undersigned was required to evacuate the building at 10:40 on 18 September during the final hour of the Saturn V refile review, and stood for 35 minutes at the designated assembly point, which is the parking lot. The undersigned notes that the publication has now parked him, as well as his concerns. He does not object to fire safety. He objects to the drill being scheduled against a review that had itself been rescheduled four times, and asks that future drills consult the editorial calendar.

The undersigned has been informed that all outgoing correspondence must now end with the approved signature block, which includes a moving image of the publication's logotype rotating slowly in three dimensions. The undersigned has corresponded with the Natural History Museum, two shipyards, and the Liebherr archive under a signature of two lines. He does not wish his letters to rotate. He requests an exemption for external correspondence on matters of record.

The undersigned observes that the wooden suggestion box outside the editorial office has been removed and replaced with a laminated card bearing a square code to be photographed with a telephone. The undersigned has submitted 41 suggestions to the wooden box since 2008, all in writing, none acknowledged. He is now unable to submit a forty-second. He requests the return of the box, and, while the matter is open, acknowledgment of the previous forty-one.

The undersigned sat, as directed, for the updated staff portrait on 27 August. The photographer requested a smile on eleven occasions. The undersigned provided his standard expression, which has served the masthead without complaint since 2007. The resulting image has been retouched to include a smile the undersigned did not supply. He requests the unaltered photograph, and a written assurance that his face will not be edited further without his knowledge.

The undersigned has been instructed that automatic absence replies must now use the approved template, which begins "Hi there! I'm currently recharging my batteries." The undersigned does not have batteries. His previous reply, in use since 2009, read "The Senior Cataloguer is away. Your correspondence has been received and will be answered in order." He requests that it be reinstated, and that the word "recharging" not be applied to members of staff.

The undersigned reports that the printer on Floor 3 no longer prints when instructed and instead holds each document until the user presents an identification badge at the machine. The undersigned's badge was issued in 2007, is laminated, and is not recognised by the device. Twelve pages of the cement mixer appendix are now held in a queue the undersigned cannot reach. He requests either a new badge, a former printer, or the twelve pages, by any means.

The undersigned has been enrolled, by default, in a summer walking competition and now appears on a leaderboard in the kitchen in last place with a weekly total of 212 steps. The undersigned does not carry the counting device and has been credited only with steps taken while holding a telephone, which he does rarely. He requests removal from the leaderboard. Failing that, he requests that the figure be annotated to reflect that it measures the telephone and not the undersigned.

The undersigned arrived on Monday to find his desk replaced, overnight and without notice, by a motorised platform that raises itself when touched. The original oak desk has been moved to an unspecified storage location. The undersigned has not requested to stand. He has been informed that the new desk "remembers his preferred height"; the undersigned notes that it has not yet been told his preferred height and has nonetheless risen twice, unprompted, during the drafting of this grievance.

The undersigned has learned that the publication's mail system now informs a sender when a message has been opened. The undersigned regards the opening of a letter as a private act, conducted at his desk, with a knife, at a time of his choosing. Since the change he has received four follow-up messages beginning "Saw you read this!" The undersigned asks that the feature be disabled, or that he be issued a means of reading correspondence without the correspondence reading him.

The undersigned reports that a ceramic crock of his own pickled beets, clearly labelled in ink and dated, was discarded during the "Fridge Refresh Friday" on 17 July. The posted policy stated that unlabelled items would be removed. The item was labelled. The undersigned has since been told that the label was "not in the new format," which requires a coloured sticker obtainable only from a dispenser that has been empty since May. He requests restitution of one crock, or an explanation of the sticker supply chain, whichever arrives first.

The undersigned has been informed that the editorial floor will pilot "flexible seating," under which desks are reserved through an application on the telephone. The undersigned has occupied the same desk since 2007; it contains the Style Guide working file, the 1999 methodology correspondence, and a drawer that does not open for anyone else. The undersigned declines to reserve a desk he already has. He further notes that the application lists his desk as "Pod C, Seat 4," a designation he does not recognise.

The undersigned received, on the Thursday preceding the national holiday, an electronic notice announcing a "Red, White and Blue Day" and inviting staff to "show their colors." The undersigned attended in his customary grey worsted and was subsequently photographed, without consent, at the edge of a group image now captioned "Almost everyone got the memo!" The undersigned notes that participation was described as voluntary and that the caption describes it otherwise. He requests that the image be cropped or the caption withdrawn.

The undersigned has observed that the shared editorial calendar, following a platform update administered without consultation on 22 June 2026, now appends a small illustrated figure - variously a party horn, a ribbon, or a pair of hands pressed together - to entries that the system has independently classified as "milestones" or "celebrations." The undersigned objects that the quarterly deadline for volume indexing is not a celebration, that the renewal of the building's pest-control contract is not a milestone, and that the calendar's capacity to form opinions on either matter was not requested. The Style Guide, Section 4, Paragraph 2, defines a milestone as "a completed unit of cataloguing work, documented and filed"; it does not define a milestone as "any date that the software finds encouraging." The undersigned requests that the emoji layer be disabled, or, failing that, that the software be instructed to confine its enthusiasm to its own affairs.

The undersigned has observed that the recently mandated submission portal requires all editorial staff to authenticate their identity through a Google account before accessing materials that were, until Thursday, accessible via a bookmark. The undersigned does not possess a Google account, has no intention of possessing one, and notes that the Style Guide, Section 4, paragraph 2, specifies that third-party credential systems shall not be required for core cataloguing functions. The undersigned further observes that the IT helpdesk's suggested remedy, which was to "just make a quick Gmail," is not a remedy but an imposition, and has been documented accordingly.

The undersigned has observed, on fourteen separate occasions since the March retrofit, that the overhead motion-sensor light in the editorial office extinguishes itself after approximately four minutes of the undersigned's seated, stationary reading, a posture the sensor apparently classifies as absence. The undersigned wishes to register that sustained, concentrated reading is, in fact, work, and that work performed without adequate illumination constitutes a documented occupational hazard. The undersigned further notes that waving one arm at the ceiling every four minutes is not a practice endorsed by the Style Guide, nor by any standard of professional decorum the undersigned is willing to accept. Facilities was notified in April and responded with a link to a wellness article about natural light.

The undersigned has been informed, by a memorandum left on his desk and signed only with an initial, that the ficus in the lobby has been "rebranded" as the catalogue's "office mascot." The undersigned objects to this on three grounds. First, a houseplant is not, by any defensible reading, a Subject (see Style Guide, Section II.1). Second, the catalogue has no mascot, has never had a mascot, and the editorial position on mascots, last expressed in 2001, was unambiguous. Third, the ficus is not even thiccc. The undersigned requests that the memorandum be retracted and the ficus returned to its previous status as a plant.

The undersigned has, with patience, permitted the Junior Cataloguer's enthusiasm for Latin etymology to occupy a column on the back page. The undersigned now reports that the footnotes in the column have begun, in three (3) consecutive issues, to exceed the body text in length. In one (1) case, footnote 14 contained its own footnote 14a. The undersigned does not object to scholarship, having pursued some of his own; the undersigned does object to footnotes that have descendants. The undersigned requests that the column's word count include footnote text going forward. The matter is filed for the record. The Junior Cataloguer is otherwise to be left in peace.

The undersigned reports, for the seventh occasion since February, an audible mechanical irregularity emanating from the duct above the Style Guide cabinet. The irregularity occurs at intervals of approximately eleven minutes, lasts between four and seven seconds, and resembles, to the best of the undersigned's ability to describe, "a small dog clearing its throat behind a wall." The undersigned has reported the matter to Facilities by interoffice envelope on each occasion. The undersigned has received no reply. The undersigned has begun timing the intervals on a wristwatch and filing the data. Three weeks of data are now on file.

The undersigned has, in the course of reviewing recent submissions, observed three (3) instances in which the catalogue's methodology memo of 1999 was cited in support of a position the memo expressly does not endorse. The memo, in Section IV, addresses the operational definition of girth-by-volume; it does not, and never has, ratified girth-by-mere-largeness, which is a separate and inferior framing. The undersigned has filed prior objections on this matter under Grievance No. 22 and again under Grievance No. 38, both of which remain open. The undersigned requests that the records desk be reminded, in writing, of the distinction.

The undersigned received, on the morning of 28 May, an automated electronic communication bearing the subject line "We are SO glad you are here!" and containing a graphic of a confetti cannon. The undersigned has been here since 2007 and requires no institutional confirmation of this fact, least of all from a platform called Bonusly. The message invited the undersigned to "share a memory" in a designated text field, which the undersigned has declined to do; nineteen years of service constitute a record, not a memoir prompt. The undersigned requests that his profile be removed from whatever employee-recognition integration has been licensed without consultation.

The overhead lights in the editorial office have been installed with a motion sensor. The motion sensor does not register the act of reading. The undersigned has, on three occasions this month, been required to wave at the ceiling to restore illumination. The undersigned recommends a switch.

The coffee machine has been inoperative since March. The undersigned has filed three prior objections (Nos. 31, 38, 44) regarding the same. The undersigned does not require coffee but maintains that a publication that cannot brew coffee cannot reasonably claim to be in continuous operation. Recommend replacement.

The undersigned has now received the Saturn V brief from the Junior Cataloguer for the seventeenth time. Each refiling has added approximately forty pages of new citations. The undersigned proposes that the Junior Cataloguer be asked to consider other subjects. The Senior Cataloguer has filed his own objection (No. 34) and considers the matter closed.

The undersigned reiterates the position taken in the Submissions Freeze Proposal of 2014. The intake volume has not decreased. The proportion of eligible submissions has. The undersigned recommends, at minimum, that the form be moved to a separate URL with no link from the main page.

Refiling. The machine remains inoperative. Two months have passed since the last response.

The undersigned has been informed, by a third party, that the publication now maintains a Slack workspace. The undersigned was not consulted in the matter. The undersigned has not joined the workspace and does not propose to. The undersigned notes that the publication’s primary means of internal communication, the memorandum, has functioned without interruption since 1974 and requires no software.

The current confirmation email reads: 'Thanks so much for your submission! We can't wait to see what you've sent us!' This is not the voice of the publication. The undersigned recommends, at minimum, removing the exclamation points.

A potted ficus has been placed on the file cabinet adjacent to the undersigned's desk. The undersigned did not consent to its placement, was not consulted, and observes that the cabinet contains active editorial files which the plant's watering schedule places at unnecessary risk. Recommend removal.

The undersigned has received a calendar invitation, marked ‘optional,’ for a team-building lunch on the fourteenth. The undersigned is opposed in principle. The undersigned does not require lunch and does not build teams. The undersigned proposes that the budget be redirected to the rebinding of the 1986 archive volumes, which are showing wear.

The undersigned has observed that a memo bearing the publication's letterhead, dated 12 August, refers to a 'team huddle.' The publication does not huddle. The publication files, reviews, and publishes. The undersigned requests that the term be retired.