Bureaucracy sucks

I asked for a report from our Illustrious Leaders of all the items that are showing up "hidden" in the [New Software Company] listing (i.e. catalog). That seemed an easy way of checking out any weirdness that might have occurred in the data load. I'd already noticed while checking stuff in previous test-loads that some stuff was coming up "hidden" that actually shouldn't be. The idea is that I would use it to see what happened and fix the problem so it doesn't happen when the actual data load happens in April. "Hidden" is also where stuff goes when it's missing, lost, or WAAAAY overdue.

Oops. I forgot to mention I asked for this report on December 13.

[By the way, I've just started running this same 'report' in our current system. Yes, I didn't have to ask permission; I'm just doing it. Myself. In spite of being STOO-PUD.]

They couldn't figure out how to formulate the search but told me they would get back to me with the report ASAP. Then Christmas happened. And we finished doing our data checking. And 2007 imploded and I forgot about the list. I did eventually ask what happened with the list around the 8th. And then again on the 14th. Because now I'm just annoyed.

They told me they were having troubles formulating the search string again, and had opened a call with the vendor. Then, lo and behold, last Friday (1/26), I received a report in email from Our Leader...it's dated four days prior to the email...but ok, nevermind....

It has 73 things on it.

[For comparison's sake, the list I'm running in our current software isn't done, but it has already found 401 items (all of these are lost, missing, etc., not miscoded).]

All of those 73 items on [New Software Company] listing are New. 71 of them have definitively NEVER been missing! They are also ALL nonfiction. No novels, no kids' books, no media. Just new nonfiction. Mind you, I've never used anything remotely similar to this reports program, but even I can tell you that if you ONLY search in the "new books" records...that's all you'll find: New Books.

[Update: The list I've been running right now is up to 913.]

So I sent a quick note back to MAS asking, in effect, WTF?

She had a flunkie rerun it and forward the results. As Techie Librarian said, "At least it didn't take 5 weeks to get a reply this time."

Now we have 0 "hidden" items.

I must append here the tagline on the email I receive every time I get email from this woman: "Prepare well and more will ultimately result."

[My final list has 1662 items on it. That's daunting in and of itself--time for a cleanup project! It took me, um, 27 minutes to create it. I need to export it to Excel and monkey with it, but it's ready to go, essentially.]

But I'm too STOOPUD to have access to the database?

Uh, yeah. Nevermind.