Here. Do this.

Those were the three words that were missing from my Tuesday.

To understand the significance of this event, you must understand my relationship to documentation -- e.g. being alone in creating and using said.  My career has been divided into three distinct roles:  Primarily I am a programmer.  I write programs and create procedures and then I document them.  I pass that documentation off to others who must use my programs or perform my procedures.  They do so after some level of hands on training, so that what I write is a piece of reference material.

Secondarily, I have been a college professor and a technical writer.  The professor, of course, receives documentation (term papers, tests, etc.) which are proofed for content and writing accuracy.  The technical writer is assigned procedures to evaluate and then to document so others might see in writing how their own procedures operate.

That brings me to Tuesday.  I was handed a piece of documentation.  I studied it for content and proofed it, and then I waited for my training.  I even asked my boss via IM to let me know when they wanted me to start carrying out that procedure.  Silence reigned, so I went on with what had always been my job.  Four hours after receiving the documentation, the person who was responsible for carrying out the procedure last month asked if I was done performing the procedure!  Surprise!  After overcoming my shock at the new method of assigning work, I pulled out the documentation.

It was very complete and worked well, but there was one hangup for me --I am the programmer that lives under a rock.  I didn't think I had access to a folder because I didn't see its icon when I displayed the contents of its predecessor directory.  Microsoft had changed the way it presented directories somewhere in the Windows versioning.  Instead of having written out paths as in Windows 3.1, Microsoft started breaking each directory down into nodes -- and it does so in the navigation box.  

The first time I saw that behavior from my computer (a version which I did not take note I might add), I just decided the honeymoon was over.  Nobody wanted to type anymore, so directory navigation had gone 100% visuo-tactile. No problem.  I'm techy.  I can change the way I operate to keep Microsoft (and me, for that matter), in business.  I didn't know I could still type in that box to tell the computer exactly where to go (side note:  I love telling computers where to go).  That was the key to carrying out the procedure.

So now I know, if handed documentation, try what it describes and see if I can do it.  No problem.  And, by the way, you won't have to tell me on October 1st to run the procedure I ran successfully on September 1.