The eX-files

Recently I have been sorting out paperwork in my office. This can be quite a big task, as I like to do a very thorough job – looking at every piece of paper in each file to see if it should be kept. I keep all kinds of documents, and “paperwork” in this sense also includes the folders full of instructions manuals, and boxes of “memories”.

I try to be reasonable about what I hold onto, but a lot would fail the “if you haven’t used/needed it for X years” test. Of course some has to be kept by law (for tax), and some other material is plainly useful or sensible to retain.

But a lot of it is just “interesting” – like documents for the sale & purchase of our 3-ago house, statements for accounts closed in 2001, University notes, O-level papers, or someone else’s school tie.

We’re not short of space, so I could keep even more stuff in theory but I enjoy the actual process of sifting through the files. On each round of processing (every couple of years, maybe) each file is reduced a little more. What I retain becomes more and more the “core” documents even though some interesting context is lost each time.

The process of checking through each file also reminds me of what’s there, and brings back memories.

Sometimes I do think it would be interesting to keep EVERYTHING. Yesterday for example, I threw out notebooks from my time on sabbatical from Bear. This was the period when I was still employed, but was taking a 3-month break. As we now know, this time was the start of the credit crisis and there were some rocky times for the business.

I had to make some calls during that time and my notes were scrawled in these books. They were not much more than phone doodles to be fair although there was enough there (names, dates, specifics of deals and so on) for me to recall the events. Actually finding the notes (in this case, at the back of what looked like an empty notebook) was in reality more interesting than the notes themselves. No one else would have been able to make anything of them.

It’s also good in these filing exercises to check that certain “important” items are still in my possession. I was able to find my 23-day plan for example. This was a single page of A4 notepad on which my revision plan for degree finals was scrawled. 23 days was all there was left by the time I realised that I was really running out of time to get the work done. It turned out to be just enough, history tells us.

The files themselves are interesting in some cases. Most of the actual documents have been re-filed a few times over the years and original envelopes, say, have for the most part been dispensed with at some point. But many of folders are still Oxford University folders that I vividly remember buying at the student union shop.

I seem to have retained exam papers from all the important milestones. I have most of the O level, A level and degree papers as well as scholarship exams for Oakham and Oxford entrance papers. I even have the ones from the banking exams. In all these cases I can recall the events of those times fairly clearly. In some cases, I still remember some of the questions (although not the answers).

Looking through them made me recall very fondly my time at school and University. Clearly these items are not “necessary” in any way but I could never get rid of them now.
Some other documents from that time are even less important, yet more interesting. I have, for example, a TELEX exchange between me and Jack Sakkab from Oakham (he’d gone back to Jordan by then) in which we let each other know our A-level results. Hard for the iPhone generation to understand that !

I wonder if the TELEX network still operates ? Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a TELEX machine chattering away at Bear Stearns for years after it was really needed for anything.

Also from the TELEX era, I have a timestamped page from the TELEX room to prove that I made it onto the FX trading floor at Natwest earlier than anyone else after a late night out other dealers, leading to a bet that I couldn’t do it. “Tweedie” still hasn’t paid up. 18 years later I haven’t forgotten (although I have written the £50 off !).

Looking through does also make me think of a number of items that I wish I had kept but I will need to be satisfied with just the memories of those !