The Big Cheese (AKA Recordkeeping for Knuckleheads)Allen Hancock A.R.M.A pdf

The Big Cheese
(AKA Recordkeeping for Knuckleheads)
Allen Hancock A.R.M.A.
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Allen Hancock
Cover design by A Hancock
Photograph from MS Office Clipart
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She burst into my office, her cheesy grin a ray of sunshine on a cold, dark, rainy
winter’s afternoon.
“Detective, er … Um?” she said looking at the name plate on the frosted glass door
panel.
I fumbled as I stood from where I had been dozing at my desk, trying without
success to keep my brain from going blank, rows of Zs stretching across my computer
screen where my finger had come to rest.
“The name’s Ulm,” I told her. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Like Kingsford Smith’s co-
pilot.”
“Kingsford what?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter, Miss er …”
“Brianna Munro,” she said.
“Won’t you take a seat, Miss Munro?”
“Please. Everybody calls me Brie
1
.”
I summed her up quickly. I could see that beneath the tough outer layer she put
across she had a soft, inner texture that would melt quickly under pressure. Even

though she had a fairly delicate nature I figured she could be deliciously blue when
the mood took her.
A stack of my case files teetered precariously on the client chair in front of the
desk. I looked around quickly for somewhere else to put them and my eyes focussed
on the first vacant space I found. The top of the waste bin.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said reading my mind. “Somebody in our office did
that with some pretty important files. They forgot about them until next morning after
the cleaner had thrown them out. We spent a lot of time searching through dumpsters
and there’s still no sign of them.”
2
“No chance of that happening here,” I said. “The cleaner only comes once a week
and that was yesterday.”
Her eyes quickly took in the chaos around me. I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t
believe it was only a day since the cleaner had been in or if I actually had a cleaner at
all.
“In a way that’s why I’m here,” she said straightening her skirt as she sat down. I
could see she had legs that went all the way up to the sensible length hem.
“I work for Mr Jarlsberg
3
,” she explained. “He’s the big cheese in our office at City
Hall.
“This Jarlsberg sounds like he can be a bit on the nose,” I said. “A real hard block”
“No,” she said. “Beneath his leathery skin Mr Jarlsberg is really a softy inside. Not
like our old boss, Mr Stilton
4
. Now he could really be a stinker”
“After the incident with the cleaner, Mr Jarlsberg decided it was time to clean up
the recordkeeping in our office. He’s assigned me the job of taking care of it but I
know nothing about records. I need your help.”
“Recordkeeping isn’t exactly my own specialty either,” I told her. I didn’t want to

do myself out of a fee but I didn’t want to raise any false hopes. “You’d better tell me
what you do know.”
“I know I gotta keep stuff, Charlie, but … Who has to keep what? And how do
they keep it?”
“That’s not a lot to go on,” I said. “I guess I can make some enquiries. I know a
couple of people who know a couple of people. I’ll let you know when I find out
something.”
“Thanks, Charlie. I’m counting on you.”
“I’ll try,” I told her. “But I think we need to start with what a record is exactly.”
…
The City Records Office was one of those places I knew nothing about. I imagined
a grey place full of dusty relics, lifeless people working long days with even longer
faces. I thought I knew the type, but if I was going to find out what a record was it
would be there.
The door must have been opened a million times before and I became person
number one million and one. It groaned mournfully on opening as if it had had
enough of its dull, monotonous existence and wanted to go the glass and metal scrap
heap in the sky. As I pondered the life of a door, a voice called to me.
“Good afternoon, sir,” a friendly voice said. “My name is Colby
5
. Sorry about the
door. I’ll make a record of it in the building management system to ensure the matter
is attended to as quickly as possible. How can I help you?”
“I need to know what a record is,” I told him as I handed him my business card.
“That’s simple, Detective, er … Um?”
“The name’s Ulm,” I told him. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Like Kingsford Smith’s co-
pilot. You know, the Southern Cross.”
“Ah, the Southern Cross! Not a hotel I frequent but I’ve heard it’s nice”.
“Doesn’t matter. I was asking about what a record is”.
“As I said, it’s simple. It’s all contained here in the city’s policy and standards on

recordkeeping. Here, take this copy, or if you prefer, it’s available on our web site.
It’s linked to the master version which is saved and maintained for authenticity and
preservation as an electronic record in the recordkeeping system”.
“But all of that is a bit complicated for the average knucklehead like me to
understand,” I said. “I’m no dummy but I do a lot of important stuff. Records aren’t
exactly a priority.”
“They’re not?” he said. “Put simply, a record is anything, in any format that
documents what you did, what you discussed or what you decided.”
“So anything can be a record?” I asked jotting the detail into my notebook.
“That’s right,” he said. “It could be a formal letter, a photograph, a voice
recording. Even the notes you’re writing in your book are a record.”
I looked at my notebook. Suddenly I began to understand. “And it can be in any
format. I assume you mean it could be paper or digital?”
“That's right,” he said. “If you can derive information from it then it can be a
record. Paper, digital, it doesn't matter. You could write it across the sky in letters that
would soar a thousand feet high
6
if you wanted to. Of course you'd then have a
problem with its long term preservation but it would still be a record.”
“And a record documents what you ?” I asked writing furiously.
“What you did, what you discussed, what you decided. Records provide evidence
of what action you took; any communication you had with other people; and how you
reach the decisions you made and communicated what those decisions were.”
I thanked Colby for his help and as I left the building I glanced over my notes
hoping that they'd make some sense later on.
What is a record?
Anything
in Any format
that Documents
what you Did

what you Discussed
what you Decided
Then it hit me. Like a smack in the face from a 2-ton van.
…
The high visibility markings on the side of the road works van parked at the curb
was mocking me. “You knucklehead,” it seemed to call out.
“You knucklehead, Charlie.” I looked up and the blue birds flapping around my
eyes finally focussed on the raven-hair firmly attached to the head of my old friend
Carrie de l’Est
7
. “You knucklehead,” she said again. “What did you think you were
doing?”
A few minutes later I was sitting in an arm chair in Carrie’s office, a packet of
frozen peas from the convenience store downstairs pressed against my face to help
keep the swelling down. That was Carrie all over. She loved small animals and she
would never have been able to leave me lying in the street.
Carrie worked in the city’s client services area and we had a lot in common. Carrie
was a case worker and I was working a case. I told her what I’d been working on.
“So you know you gotta keep stuff, Charlie,” she said, “but you want to know who
has to keep what stuff and how do you keep it? I think that in order to know that you
first need to understand why you have to keep stuff.”
“I guess we have keep stuff to comply with the law,” I said.
“Ah yes,” Carrie said. “The ‘C’ word. Compliance. But we don’t do things merely
to comply with the rules. Rules all have a reason behind them. You don’t run with
scissors just because your mother told you not to. You don’t run with scissors because
you could get hurt, or you could hurt somebody else.”
“So why do you as a case worker keep records?” I asked her. “Why is
recordkeeping important? As a case worker I guess you're really at the nitty-gritty end
of the client services function then.”
“I suppose you could say that,” she said. “The reason the department exists is to

support the clients that we case workers look after.”
“No clients, no department then. You must be really busy. Too busy for something
as uninteresting as keeping records?”
“Yes,” she agreed, “we are busy. We have a lot of clients. Looking after them is
our main priority but recordkeeping is still very important in helping us to do that.
There are a lot of reasons for us to keep records but to me these four are the most
important. And they apply to everybody, not just to us case workers.
Firstly, records protect our clients’ interests. They help us to plan how we can
improve the services we provide to them. They tell us what we're doing well, what we
could do better and they help to identify what we should be doing that we're not
doing.”
“Recordkeeping also enables us to share information between people who need to
use it and who are authorised to have access to it. Otherwise we can't give our clients
the best service we can give them.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. So, as far as you're concerned the
most important reasons for keeping records are for the benefit of your clients then?”
“That's right,” Carrie agreed, “but like everybody we're also accountable.
Carrie looked around to see if anybody was listening. Then she gestured for me to
come closer and she put her lips closer to my ear.
“Its part of the Code,” she whispered.
“The Code?” I said suddenly aware of the tension in the room you could slice and
serve on a cracker.
“Yes, the Code. The Code of Conduct. The Code says that we’re all accountable.
Keeping records is important to help us to support that.
“So you could say that without records there is no accountability?”
“Yes. And without accountability where would we be?”
I shrugged.
“Nowhere, Charlie,” she said. “We’d be nowhere. Finally, records represent the
corporate memory of our organisation.”
“Corporate memory?” I said. “What sort of bureaucratic nonsense is that?”

“I know it sounds a bit airy-fairy,” Carrie said. “But none of us is here forever. I'd
like to think that when I leave I've made a difference. In the long term the only thing
I'll leave behind me are the records of the work I've done and the people I've helped.
Keeping records helps me to contribute to our collected body of knowledge.”
“So in other words, everything that everybody in your office ever did for any of its
clients is in its records. But how do you make time for recordkeeping when you're so
busy looking after the clients?”
“That's the amazing thing about keeping records,” Carrie said. “We don't really
notice we're doing it. We all create records everyday but the most important thing is
what we do with them. For case workers like me we keep records in the case
management system.”
“People who create traditional documents like Word and emails keep them in the
document and records management system. We use several systems that manage our
information and they are all part of the corporate recordkeeping system.”
“It actually doesn't take up any more time to keep records properly than any of us
already spend doing in our daily work. And when we keep them in their electronic
format it takes up hardly any time at all. What time it does take is more than made up
for by the time we save trying to find information that hasn’t been managed well.”
Now it all made sense. Except for one small thing.
“It all makes sense, Carrie,” I said, “Except for one small thing. What records does
a person need to keep?”
“I’m glad you asked,” she said. “When I found you in the street just now, I went
through a standard routine that those of us trained in first aid go through
automatically.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t remember a thing.”
“That’s all right. You were a bit out of it for a while there. The routine is based on
DRABC. Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, Circulation. A simple thing really
but it means we do everything we need to do in the order we need to do it without
stopping to think about it.
“We can do the same thing for recordkeeping by using First Aid for Records. It

means we don’t have to stop and ask whether we need to keep something or not.”
“First Aid for Records is based on ABCDE.”
“A is for accountability. As I said before, we’re all accountable and keeping
records helps us to be accountable. If a document supports our accountability we
should keep it.”
“B is for business activity. Records need to be kept of every business activity or
transaction we carry out in our daily work. That could mean any activity from paying
a bill or reporting on a complex investigation.”
“C is for communication. Every time we communicate with a member of the
public or with another agency, and often people within our own agency, we need to
keep it as a record.”
“D is for decision-making. Decision-Making 101 requires that we document the
major decisions we make and communicate those decisions to the people who need to
know about them.”
“And finally, E is for expectation. If we expect that something needs to be kept
then we should keep it. In fact a simple rule-of-thumb is that if we have to ask if we
should keep it or not then we should keep it.”
“I thought a rule-of-thumb actually had to involve a thumb,” I said.
“That’s right,” Carrie agreed. “You need to ask yourself, what you are going to be
hung up by the thumbs for. Keeping it as a record, or not keeping it as a record?”
“I see,” I said writing notes quickly into my notebook before I forgot.
“It’s easy to remember,” Carrie explained.
“A – Accountability, B – Business Activity, C – Communication, D – Decision-
Making, and E – if you’re still confused, What’s your Expectation?”
“That’s easy to remember,” I said.
“I can make it even easier,” Carrie said. “With the addition of a couple of dooh
dahs, you can even sing it to the tune of Camptown Races.”
“Probably better if I didn’t try that out in public,” I told her. “The last karaoke bar I
went to I was asked to leave.”
I thanked Carrie for her help and promised to catch up with her again soon for a

macchiato.
She said “OK, so long as it’s fair trade coffee and you bring the muffins.”
“Fair enough,” I told her, “Mac and muffins it is.”
“Just remember one thing,” Carrie added. “There’s never been a judge who got up
anybody for being too diligent in keeping records. Only for not being diligent
enough.”
As I walked back out into the street quietly humming to myself I looked over my
notes.
Oh Dooh Dah Day.
Why is recordkeeping important?
Records help to improve services
Records help improve efficiency through sharing information
Records support accountability
Records contribute to corporate memory
What records should we keep?
A – Accountability,
B – Business Activity,
C – Communication,
D – Decision-Making,
and E – if you’re still confused, What’s your Expectation
Then it hit me.
Like a smack in the Achilles tendon from a runaway mobility scooter.
As I picked myself up from the ground I noticed the frail, white-haired granny
trying to explain to the beat cop why she thought that a mobility scooter had the
inalienable right to travel through pedestrian traffic at twice their speed.
…
My head thumped like a tin drum as I limped my way back to the office. It had
been a long day and the night fell early under the gathering rain storm. I was about to
get drenched and I knew what I needed. I changed direction. I headed for my local.
The rain was dripping from the brim of my Trilby as I pushed through the door, the

glare of the flashing neon lights reflecting like coloured stars from the drops slashing
through the darkness.
The local was quiet. A couple of kids in the back giggling quietly. A guy drinking
on his own in the corner booth and two goons sitting two booths up. The goons went
quiet as I walked in, their eyes following me across to the bar. They looked serious
and I tried not to look back at them even though their resemblance to each other was
eerie. Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber was all I could think of.
I perched my backside onto the bar stool. “The usual thanks Romano
8
,” I said.
“You look like you’ve had a bad day,” he said noticing my shiner that probably
glowed brighter than the neon outside.”
“Better make it a double,” I said. “Who’d a thought recordkeeping could be so
dangerous?”
“One double-shot, decaf, low-fat latte coming up,” Romano said while he banged
the old grinds out of the coffee drippy thingy and topped it up with fresh stuff.
“Recordkeeping eh. You should talk to Ol’ Burford
9
.” Romano pointed to the guy
in the corner booth. “Word on the street is that he knows records. An’ not just stuff
about who can slam down how many espresso shots in the shortest time either.”
Suddenly I felt like I was being watched. Romano appeared to be looking past my
shoulder towards the corner booth. I turned and saw the man beckoning to me.
I got up from the stool and walked over to him still feeling the eyes of the two
goons in the other booth boring into me.
"I hear ya been lookin'?" the man said.
"Who's askin'?"
"I hear ya been lookin' to clean up. Clean up the messy recordkeeping."
"I am," I said handing him my card. "Who are you?"
"I can help you,” he said. He looked at the card, his eyes screwed into a squint as

he held it at arms length. “Detective, er … Um?”
“The name’s Ulm,” I said. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Like Kingsford Smith’s co-pilot.
You know, the first flight from San Francisco to Sydney.”
“Ah yes, Sydney,” he said. “I once knew a young man from Sydney.
“And I suppose he drank till he ruined his kidney,” I added.
“He drank and he drank till he stank and he stank,” he continued.
“But he had fun doin’ it didn’e.” I concluded.
“I can help you,” he said. “I see the problems around here. I hear what goes on.
Most people just call me Old Burford. That’s cos my name’s Burford and I’m old.”
I sat down at the table. “I know what a record is,” I told him. “I know what records
to keep and I know why we keep them. Now I need to know what to do with records.”
“How to keep records and where to keep records is pretty much the same thing.
Records need to be kept in the recordkeeping system. But the problem is it all comes
down to rules. Few people are following them.”
“So why should records be kept in the recordkeeping system?” I asked. “Why can’t
I just keep records where I like? I would have thought that it was more important that
I just kept them without having to worry about a recordkeeping system.”
The old man sighed. “Recordkeeping is not rocket science. But even rocket
scientists keep records.”
“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Take out your wallet.”
I was hesitant but I did as he asked.
“Now give me all your money,” he told me. “Don’t worry, I’m just going to look
after it for you.”
I didn’t move. I’d been stung before. Like that time with the email from the guy in
Nigeria.
“What’s keeping you?” he asked. “Don’t you trust me? What if I told you to put it
all in the bank? Would you be more comfortable with that?”
“I suppose I would,” I admitted.
“So what’s the difference? I’d have given you your money back, so would the
bank.”

“I suppose the bank has rules it has to follow.”
“And that’s the difference between letting a stranger look after your money or even
hiding it under your bed. There aren’t any rules. With the bank there are rules that the
bank has to comply with so your money is protected.”
“It’s the same with the recordkeeping system. It applies rules to your records so
you know they’re protected. It applies rules that ensure the records accurately reflect
the transactions they document. Rules that ensure they’re adequate for the purpose for
which they’re kept. Rules to ensure they remain authentic. Rules to ensure they’re
complete, that they’re compliant with the legal environment they were created in.
That they’re comprehensive and they document the complete range of your business
activities. That they’re inviolate, they’re securely maintained to prevent unauthorised
access, alteration or removal. And that they remain meaningful. They retain their
context so anybody can correctly understand the transactions that created them.”
“Wow!” I said as I furiously took down what he was saying.
“If you kept records any old way none of these rules would be applied.”
“So what sort of rules are we talking about?” I asked.
“Saving a record means placing it into the recordkeeping system,” he explained.
“We do this by applying explicit information to the record which establishes
relationships between it, its creator and the business context in which it originated. So
the questions we ask include: Date of creation? Date of capture? Author? Access
status? Related documents?”
“The recordkeeping system uses this information to accurately re-trace the status,
structure and integrity of the record at any particular time, and to show its
relationships with other records.”
“And don't forget that emails must also be saved as records. If they contain
information relating to your business they must be treated in the same way as any
other form of record and saved in the recordkeeping system.”
“The recordkeeping system applies rules about who can access the records. What
level of risk does the information represent? What is the likelihood that the wrong
people will get hold of it? What would be the consequences if they did? The higher

the likelihood and the more serious the consequences of information getting in the
wrong hands, the more you need to restrict access. But always remember, the more
you restrict access, the harder it will be for the people who need the information to get
it as well.”
“Let me ask you a question. What do you think is more important? Stopping
people getting at your information, or knowing that they did get it?”
I had to think for a moment. I remembered Old Burford’s comparison with putting
my money in the bank.
“I guess that if my money was kept under my mattress nobody else would know it
was there so it should be pretty safe. But if somebody did get to it I wouldn’t know
unless I looked and even then it would probably be too late to do anything. I guess I
could make the money harder to get to by maybe putting a safe under the bed but that
would only make it harder for me to keep an eye on it and more likely that the theft
wouldn’t be noticed.”
“On the other hand by keeping it in the bank, yes somebody could still steal it but
there would be evidence that it was gone and an audit trail to show when and how it
was stolen.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s what the recordkeeping system does. It can’t stop every
situation. But it does keep an audit trail so you can tell that the information has got out
and give you the chance to do something about it any damage.”
“So I guess it would be more important to know when people got your information
than trying to stop them altogether.”
“Another set of rules that the recordkeeping system adds,” Old Burford went on,
“are the rules around retention and disposal.”
“What’s retention and disposal?” I asked. I soon regretted the question. I felt it
rather than heard it. A movement behind me, a change in the atmosphere.
As I turned slowly Old Burford said softly, “Let me introduce you to the boys.”
Behind me stood the two goons I’d seen watching me earlier. Even close up I
couldn’t tell them apart. They had the same shifty eyes, the same set of the jaw, the
same shock of red hair. They even had the same scars on their cheeks although each

on a different side.
“These are my boys, Red Lester
10
and Blue Vinnie
11
.
“Boys, this is Detective, er … Um?”
“The name’s Ulm,” I said. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. You know. Smithy’s co-pilot.”
“Oh yeah,” said Red Lester. “We know Smitty.”
“Used to run a game at the back of Kelly’s Bar and Grill,” added Blue Vinnie.
“Lester is a disposal authority,” said Old Burford, “and Vinnie is a retention
schedule. They always work together. In the recordkeeping system we use them to ….
ah. Well ….we use them to get rid of records that have …. Ah. Records that have
outgrown their usefulness, so to speak.
“Yeah”, said Lester. “I’m the Disposal Authority. And my bruddah’s the Retention
Schedule.
“He authorises the disposal of records according to my schedule” said Vinnie.
“One of us aint no good widdout the uddah but togedder, youse better be careful.
Togedder we make up the retention and disposal authority.”
“But we don’t do nuttin without de Keeper’s say so.”
“The Keeper?” I asked.
“Yeah da Keeper of Public Records
12
,” said Lester. “The Keeper authorises the
disposal of records by issuing us.”
“A bit like taking out a contract to ah, take them out,” said Vinnie. “A contract
covering the removal of records from operational systems. Sometimes we can destroy
them. Sometimes we have to send them off to da big house. The Archives.”
“That’s for the records that have to be put away, poimanently.”
“And we need to be used on a systematic and routine basis too.”

“Otherwise the records will get out of control.”
“We decide what records are to be kept.”
“How long they gotta to be kept.”
“And, at what point records can be destroyed.”
“And we always carry out our business in a way that protects the confidentiality of
any information the records contained.”
I flinched as Lester reached under his jacket but I relaxed again as he pulled out a
sheet of paper. “We always keep a list,” he said. “A record of the records destroyed,
as well as a reference to the appropriate disposal classes. This must be made and kept
when records are destroyed.
“Thanks boys,” Old Burford said and much to my relief the two goons faded once
more into the background.
“Without the recordkeeping system there would be no rules. No rules means
chaos.”
“I see,” I said. “There’s obviously a lot to this recordkeeping than first meets the
eye. A lot of hard work.”
Old Burford shook his head. “No,” he said. “In the recordkeeping system most of
this stuff happens without anybody even knowing its happening. It’s actually a lot of
hard work if you don’t keep records in the recordkeeping system. But you do have to
make some fairly simple decisions when you save records. Probably the most
important is using the Classification Scheme.”
“The Classification Scheme. What’s that?”
Old Burford pulled out his fob watch and flipped it open. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s
late and they lock the doors at the retirement home in five minutes.”
I called out as he hobbled towards the door followed closely by Red Lester and
Blue Vinnie. “How can I find out about the Classification Scheme?”
Old Burford stopped in the doorway and looked back. “Go and talk to Gordon the
Foul Mouthed Chef,” he said. “He runs Zola’s Restaurant over at the Ritz
13
. He’ll help

you.”
“Gordon the Foul Mouthed Chef,” I said. “Isn’t he the guy …?”
“No,” said Old Burford before I could finish. “You’re thinking of the other guy.”
With that Old Burford hobbled out into the street, the door swinging behind him
leaving the café suddenly quiet.
Before I went to go back to the office I left Romano a tip. “Always keep good
records,” I told him.
“I always do,” he said. “It’s one of the fundamentals of any business. As the judge
once told me, if you’re gonna do business, you gotta keep records
14
.”
As I walked out into the street I reread the notes in my notebook.
Keep records in the recordkeeping system
The recordkeeping system ensures that records remain:
- Adequate
- Authentic
- Complete
- Compliant
- Comprehensive
- Complete
- Inviolate
- Maintained
- Meaningful
The recordkeeping system manages:
- Access and Security
- Retention and Disposal
How did people ever get on without a recordkeeping system? I wondered.
Then it hit me.
Like a smack in the ear with a 10 pound atlantic salmon.
As I picked myself up from the ground and tried to shake the fish juice from my

external acoustic meatus I knew that the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle
15
had a lot
to answer for.
I figured that after the day I’d just been through the world owed me something, so I
grabbed the salmon from where it had landed in the gutter, shoved it under my arm
and headed for home.
A nice piece of atlantic salmon for my dinner, its skin fried to a brown crispness
with a glaze of ginger, chilli and honey, served on a bed of rice with steamed
vegetables on the side would partly make up for it.
…
I woke late the next morning, my head aching from the shiner that was already
turning purple. My leg could hardly take any movement and my ear had a constant
ring to it. My mind was still wrestling with the case, trying to find a clue to a problem
that seemed as old as religion. What is a classification scheme?
I figured it was time to visit Gordon the Foul-Mouthed Chef, but of course not to
be confused with the other guy.
I found the chef in the kitchen of his restaurant, standing at the bench singing to
himself as he chopped vegetables. The other guy might have a bunch of Michelin
Stars to his credit but this guy had a couple of Michelin tyres under the belt of his
ample chequered pants.
“When the band plays Ha il to the Chef
16
…” he was singing when he suddenly
looked up. “Oh! I’ve been expecting you Detective, er … Um?”
“The name’s Ulm,” I said. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Like Kingsford Smith’s co-pilot.
You know, the first flight across the Pacific.”
“Ah, the Pacific. The largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name derived
from the Luso-Latin macaronic Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by
the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the

“Doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. I’ve been looking into a case that involves
recordkeeping and I’m stuck on the business classification scheme. Old Burford told
me you might be able to help.”
“So you have a problem with the business classification scheme,” said the chef.
“Frankly, so do a lot of people. But it’s really just a method of arranging information
in a consistent way across an organisation.”
“Classification of records based on function acts as a powerful tool to help us
conduct business. It provides links between individual documents collected for a
continuous record of an activity.”
“It ensures records are named consistently over time. It helps in the retrieval of all
records about a particular function or activity. It determines security protection and
appropriate access for sets of records. It allocates user permissions for access to or
action on particular groups of records. It distributes responsibility for management of
particular sets of records. It enables the distribution of records for action. And it
determines appropriate retention periods and disposal actions for records.”
“That’s good,” I said, “but it’s still confusing. There are so many different terms.
How can I be expected to know them all?”
“Try to think of classification in another way. Like sorting for instance. Here, let
me give you an example. I’m catering for a small dinner party this evening so why
don’t you help me? I thought I might start with a very simple, but equally amazing,
alphabet soup. Before we can start though we need to pick up some things.”
We walked across the street to Tyri’s Fruit and Veg. Kefalo Tyri
17
had been
operating his fruit and vegetable shop on this spot it seemed since Socrates played
centre for Athens against the Peloponnesians.
“Kalimera, Kefalo,” the chef called out.
“Kalimera, Chef” Kefalo responded, wiping his hands on his apron before
grabbing the chef’s hand and shaking it within an inch of its life.
“And how is your family, Kefalo?” asked the chef.

“You know what Socrates said. By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll
be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher”.
“Kefalo, this is Detective Um.”
“Detective Um?”
“Detective Ulm,” I corrected him. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Like the pilot.”
“Ah yes. Pilotis. My wife, she does Pilotis but its not making no difference.”
“You mean Pilates,” I corrected.
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“Anyway,” said the chef. “The detective is looking to find out about business
classification so I thought I’d bring him over.”
“Business classification,” said Kefalo looking at me as if he considered me the
knucklehead I was starting to feel, “is just like sorting your apples from your oranges.
They’re your broad terms.” He pointed to the range of fruit on display.
“Here you’ve got your Grannies, your Fujis, your Pink Ladies and so on. Over here
are your Navels and your Valencias. Your narrower terms.”
“It would be pretty confusing,” the chef explained, “if all of the items in the shop
were just put all over the place. Merchants sort their items into different item types so
it makes it easier for their staff to put things out on display and to make it easier for
their customers to find what they’re looking for. All the items have their own places
on the shelves. They arrange their goods into different classes. They classify them.”
“But business classification is not just about sorting,” continued Kefalo. “It also
defines a common vocabulary.”
He picked up a melon from the display. “Is this a cantaloupe?” he asked tossing it
from one hand to the other. “Or is it a rock melon?”
The chef was busy filling a shopping cart and he picked up a purple fruit. “Is this
an aubergine or an egg plant?” he asked me before putting it back and picking up a
bunch of green shoots. “Spring onions or shallots?”
“Actually,” Kefalo interrupted, “They’re neither a spring onions nor shallots. The
correct term is Scallion, or Allium fistulosum. True shallots are considered to be the
French Challot, Allium oschaninii, but other forms of shallot exist such as Allium

ascalonicum. These look more like traditional onions although their bulbs are
segmented, similar to those of garlic bulbs. Spring, or green, onions can in fact be any
young onion, usually picked in spring, for which the bulb has not fully set. So you
see, just because we always call something by one name, doesn’t mean somebody else
will know exactly what we mean.”
“And by linking business classification to disposal,” the chef said pointing to the
bag in his trolley, “we can work out how long we need to keep stuff for.”
“Onions will keep for months provided the conditions are right,” explained Kefalo.
“Tomatoes on the other hand will only keep for a couple of days.”
Suddenly it was starting to make sense. “So the classification scheme is just a way
of helping us sort out our records so we can find them again. It defines a common
vocabulary of terms and their meanings so everybody knows what everybody else is
talking about. And by linking it to the retention and disposal of records it helps to
automate the process.”
“Very good,” said the chef. “Now, while you’re paying the bill would you mind
picking up a copy of No Idea? I want to see what the Nigela has been up to lately.”
…
Back in the kitchen the chef put me to work preparing the vegetables for his soup.
“Using a classification scheme for keeping records is no different to sorting
vegetables,” he continued. “We classify records according to the functions of the
organisation. What the organisation’s role is. Then we classify according the activities
that support each of those functions. What the organisation does. When we classify
records we need to look for the function that the information fits into and then the
activity that is most suitable.”
“Akirosan!” The Chef jumped as a voice seemed to come from nowhere. It had a
strangely Japanese accent.
“Chef has put tomatoes, water, vinegar, herbs and, it looks like alphabet noodles
into the pot. When I asked him what he was planning to make today he told me to stop
annoying him and to go and get a real job.”
“Thanks big fella,” a second voice responded. “It looks like I was right. Chef is

cooking up a big batch of alphabet soup.”
A female voice joined in. “Mmmm mmm. I can hardly wait to taste it. That soup
looks delicious.”
“Brilliant,” the chef said trying to ignore the conversation. “But one last important
piece of information. The classification scheme looks confusing. But most people will
only ever use a very small number of terms. I’m a chef and when I go shopping I only
shop for the food I’m going to cook. I don’t worry about all the other items. Keep it
simple and choose the terms that most relate to your own work and only worry about
them.”
The chef poured us each a mug of soup to try. He held his own mug up as if he
were making a toast. “Lubbly jubbly,” he said.
As I was about to leave one last question still remained niggling at my thoughts
like a worm chomping through a bowl of fruit. “Why do they call you Gordon the
Foul-Mouthed Chef?” I asked. “You haven’t sworn at me once.”
“With a name like Gordon Zola
18
,” he said, “what do you think they’re going to
call me?”
It was still early when I hobbled out into the street so I decided to take a train back
to the office. The earth seemed to swallow the crowd down into its bowels as I
followed them down the escalator. On the platform I went over my notes.
The classification scheme:
- sorts information by function and activity
- defines a common vocabulary
- links to retention and disposal
Then it hit me.
Like a body blow from the 3:57 City Central Express.
I flinched, waiting for a blow to strike.
“Attention Platform 4. The 3:57 City Central Express has been delayed and will
now arrive in 9 minutes. City Rail apologises for any inconvenience”

“Lucky”, I mumbled aloud to myself. Rather than risk waiting I headed back out of
the station and took a cab back to the office.
Although I now had plenty of answers I still had to find out one more thing, and to
do that I needed to gather together all of the usual suspects.
I needed to find out who was responsible.
…
The private function room at Zola’s reminded me of one of those classic drawing
room scenes you see in an old movie. Comfortable leather arm chairs in front of a
blazing fireplace. A fox hunting scene hung above the mantle.
I’d asked Brie to gather up a group of people from her office and they were all
waiting for me when I walked in. Brie walked over to meet me, a study in scarlet
19
as
her red dress highlighted her strawberry blonde hair.
She introduced me to the other members of the group.
Mr Jarlsberg was the business unit manager. From his bearing I guessed he was an
ex military man and his yellow tie gave his complexion the colour of mustard kernels.
Mrs Pecorino
20
was the CEO. If Jarlsberg was the Big Cheese in the office then
Pecorino was an even bigger cheese, the head honcho, the Godmother. She looked all
business in her suit of peacock blue.
Beside her was Colby, the records professional who treated records with a
reverence nobody else could fathom. He was also the office greenie and resident
recycling nazi.
The youngest was the IT guy, classic Gen-Y geek although I preferred to think of
them as Generation Why-y? with the ‘why’ having a minimum of two syllables. But
that could be because I always thought of myself as being from Generation Why Not?
“Good evening Detictive, er … Um?” the IT guy said with a strong Kiwi accent
and offering me his hand.

“Ulm,” I told him. “U-L-M. Charlie Ulm. Made the first flight to New Zealand
with Kingsford Smith.”
“Ah yis,” he said. “Kungsford Smuth.”
He had an air about him that told me he’d spent more time at university than any
professor, and the plum coloured polo shirt he wore over his jeans contrasted with the
more formal office attire of the rest.
“My name is Edam
21
,” he said.
“Edam?” I replied.
“No, not Idam, Edam. Like ‘Medam I’m Edam’. Ut’s a pilindrome”
“A pilindrome?” I repeated. “Ah! You mean a palindrome. ‘Madam I’m Adam’.
Your name is Adam.”
“Thet’s corrict,” he said. “Edam.”
It was getting late and I needed to get this meeting under way. I still needed to find
out who was responsible. I had five suspects already but I preferred to have six at
these meetings. Six was a number that just seemed to work better.
The door to the kitchen opened and Gordon the Foul Mouthed Chef walked in
carrying a tray of delicacies to go with our coffee, his white cook’s jacket showing the
stains of a hard day.
“Ah Chef,” I said. “I know you’re not a part of this group but would you mind
joining us please.”
The chef was about to respond with something appropriate when he appeared to
change his mind and accepted my invitation.
I started with a summary followed by slideshow presentation on everything I’d
learnt about recordkeeping over the last couple of days. What stuff had to be kept.
Why it had to be kept. Where it had to be kept. How it had to be kept.
“There’s only one thing left,” I said and looked at each of them in turn.
“Which one of you is responsible? Who is responsible for keeping records?”
I turned suddenly for effect and pointed an accusing finger at the CEO.

“What about you Mrs Pecorino? Are you responsible?”
“I suppose,” she said, “As the CEO I have the ultimate responsibility for the
management of the records. This would include the overall executive responsibility
for the recordkeeping policy and standards, and for supporting their application
throughout the organisation.”
I turned my attention to the business unit manager.
“But she can’t actually keep all the records herself, can she, Mr Jarlsberg? Are you
responsible?”
Jarlsberg was taken aback. “I-I guess not,” he said. “Individual directors, managers
and supervisory staff are responsible for ensuring that their employees create, receive
and maintain records of functions, processes, activities and transactions. They’re also
responsible for ensuring that no records are inappropriately destroyed.”
“What about the Records Office?” I said turning suddenly to the next suspect,
Colby. “Is the Records Office responsible?”
“The Records Office is responsible for making sure that the recordkeeping policy
and standards are current and relevant to the business needs and obligations of the
organisation,” He said. “We provide advice and guidance on recordkeeping practice.
We communicate to all employees about the recordkeeping policy and standards,
monitor their application and take action to ensure that anomalies are corrected.”
I looked across to Brie. Would she buckle under the pressure? “And as a line
manager, Brie,” I said. “Are you responsible for recordkeeping?”
“Of course,” she said. “Managers at all levels are responsible for ensuring that
appropriate resources exist within the business unit for fulfilling our recordkeeping
responsibilities. We need to communicate recordkeeping procedures appropriate to
the business unit, we need to ensure that all of our staff have appropriate training in
recordkeeping procedures and to ensure that these procedures are applied.”
I looked over towards Edam, I mean Adam, the IT guy. “What about IT?” I asked.
Are you responsible?”
“Ut’s the responsibulity of the IT staff,” he said, “to maintain the tichnology used
to support sustems thet cepture and keep ricords elictronically insuring thet all

documents are reliable, available and accissible to staff.”
“Well that’s about it then,” I said. “You all have responsibilities associated with
recordkeeping but who is responsible for actually keeping them?”
I looked at each of them. There was only the chef left. “What about you Chef? Are
you responsible?”
“Well,” he said. “Funny you should ask that? As a small business operator I have
to keep records of a number of things. I have to keep records to support my
accountability to the tax office. I have to keep records of my business activities. I
keep records to support my accountability for food safety. Keeping records is a
fundamental activity of every area of business. In fact keeping records is the only
activity that crosses over every aspect of business.”
“So that means,” said the CEO, “that everybody is responsible for keeping
records.”
“And everybody,” added Brie, “is responsible for keeping records of their own
activities.”
“At last,” I said. “No single person is responsible. There are a number of
responsibilities around recordkeeping but the responsibility doesn’t rest on any single
person. Recordkeeping is everybody’s responsibility.”
…
It was late when I returned to the office but I felt satisfied with another case
resolved. It had been a hard couple of days but as usual hard investigation had won
out. I was looking forward to a few well-earned days off.
Suddenly the phone rang. I picked it up and held it against my bad ear and groaned
in pain. I swapped it to the good ear and answered.
“Charlie Ulm Detective Agency,” I said.
“No,” I said, “that’s Ulm. U-L-M.”
“Yes the pilot.”
I listened for a few minutes before interrupting.
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry but I won’t be taking on any new cases for a few days.”
I recommended another guy who I knew would welcome the challenge and then I

hung up the phone.
It wasn’t like me to refuse a new case but I needed to rest my black eye, put my
weary foot up and take care of my salmon-flattened ear.
Somebody else would have to find out who moved the clients’ cheese.
22
~~~~
Cheese Notes and other references
1. Brie is a soft cows’ cheese named after Brie, the French province in which it
originated (roughly corresponding to the modern departement of Seine-et-Marne). It
is pale in colour with a slight greyish tinge under crusty white mould; very soft and
savoury with a hint of ammonia. The white mouldy rind is edible, and is not intended
to be separated from the cheese before consumption.
2. A true story. It happened in my own department. The files now undoubtedly
form part of the landfill somewhere
3. Jarlsberg is a mild cow’s-milk cheese with large irregular holes or what are
commonly referred to as “eyes”, originating from Jarlsberg, Norway. Jarlsberg has a
yellow-wax rind and a semi-firm yellow interior. The flavor is mild, buttery, nutty and
slightly sweet.
4. Stilton is a type of English cheese, known for its characteristic strong smell. It
is produced in two varieties: the well-known blue and the lesser-known white.
5. Originally called Colby Swiss Cheddar, Colby cheese is a semi-hard cow's
milk cheese native to the United States, although it is made in other regions of the
world as well. The cheese is often compared to cheddar cheese, since the two are both
typically dyed to appear orange or creamy yellow, although the two cheeses taste very
different.
6 . Carré de l'Est is a French cheese originating from Lorraine. Its place of
origin and square shape give it its name (literally "square of the East"). Carré de l'Est
is produced from cow's milk and is aged five weeks. It has a smokey bacon flavour.
with a white downy rind.
7 . To Sir With Love

8 . Romano cheese is a type of cheese that is known for being very hard, salty and
sharp. It is usually grated. It is different from normal cheeses because it requires more
milk per pound, most water being lost in the process.
9 Old Burford is a mould-ripened cheese traditionally made from ewes’ milk.
Firmer when young, it develops a squishy texture after about 3½ weeks. A tangy,
chalky centre, with a soft rim like melted butter, encased in a delicate rind with a
smidgeon of bite – this is a king among cheeses, an emperor to a camembert citizenry.
10. Red Leicester is an English cheese, made in a similar manner to Cheddar
cheese, although it is crumblier; it is coloured orange by adding annatto extract during
manufacture. Its mild flavour goes well with most food and wine or beer, and is good
for Welsh rarebit.
11 . Dorset Blue Vinney (frequently spelled "vinny") is a traditional blue
cheese made in Dorset, England, from skimmed cows' milk. It is a hard, crumbly
cheese. "Vinney" is a local Dorset term related to the obsolete word "vinew", which
means to become mouldy. Another explanation has it that "vinny" is a corruption of
"veiny", referring to the blue veins running throughout the cheese.
12 . The Keeper of Public Records refers to the senior authority for the
oversight of records in your jurisdiction.
13 . Ritz. Not really a cheese reference but what would a cheese be without a
cracker to put it on.
14. Sheinlin, Judge J. Yes. Judge Judy actually said that.
15 . Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results. Lundin, S.,
Paul, H., Christensen, J.
16 . Fortunate Son
17. Kefalotyri (or Kefalotiri) is a hard, salty yellow cheese made from sheep
milk and/or goat’s milk in Greece and Cyprus (cow’s milk is not allowed in the
Cypriot version), although, a similar cheese Kefalograviera, which is made with
cow’s milk, or a mixture of sheep and cow is sometimes sold outside Greece and
Cyprus as Kefalotyri.
18 . Gorgonzola (Yes I know it’s a stretch) is a veined Italian blue cheese, made

from unskimmed cow’s and/or goat’s milk. It can be buttery or firm, crumbly and
quite salty, with a ‘bite’ from its blue veining. It has been made since the early Middle
Ages, but became marbled with greenish-blue mould only in the eleventh century.
19 . A Study in Scarlet was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first story featuring
Sherlock Holmes.
20. Pecorino is the name of a family of hard Italian cheeses made from ewe’s
milk. The word derives from pecora meaning ‘sheep’.
21 . Edam is a Dutch cheese that is traditionally sold as spheres with pale yellow
interior and a coat of red paraffin wax. It is named after the town of Edam in the
province of North Holland, where the cheese is coated for export and for tourist high
season.
22 . Who moved my Cheese? In case you missed this one it’s a reference to
Spencer Johnson’s classic book on managing change.
~~~~
If you enjoyed The Big Cheese and would like to read more, try:-
Short Stories
- The Battlefield
- The Billabong Incident
- 3:14 am
Novels
- The Chance of a Storm
- Song of the River
Records Management
- Gordon Ramsay and Alphabet (Expletive Deleted) Soup – The Future of
Recordkeeping is Simple
Allen Hancock was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1952. He joined the
Australian Regular Army in 1970 and spent the next 21 years moving around most
areas of Australia. He left the Army in 1992 and has been working as a professional
records manager since then. Allen has more than 40 years association with the records
industry working with Federal and State Government agencies as well as in higher

education and private enterprise.