Happy Half Friday BMB!

Have you seen the weather out there? If not I strongly suggest a walk to the HUB for a sugary caffeinated beverage from Starbucks. As my great grandmother used to say, “You need to go out and get the stink blown off you.”

Yeah, I don’t get it either. My grandma Ralph was a bit odd.

We have a special blog post this week. I’ve been asked to cover some best practices for handing in paperwork at the office.

It’s a Paperwork Extravaganza!

Only with less confetti. And more paperclips.

We would like to make a few requests that will help things run a little more smoothly in the main office.

• If you can avoid printing travel paperwork double-sided this would be immensely appreciated. Think airfare, conference itineraries; all of that stuff should be one-sided. Of course, we all want to do our part to help reduce our carbon footprint, but unfortunately when it comes to ERS reports we have to make scans. Lot’s of them. And that gets pretty interesting when you have a couple of things printed one-sided and others double-sided.
• No staples. Paperclips are your friends. Remember the scanning? Now that you’ve gone to the trouble to staple your nice stack of paperwork and bring it to us, the first thing we do is pull the staple out because we need to scan the paperwork. So much scanning. Yeah, this applies to just about everything; travel paperwork, pcard paperwork, you name it. No staples. Take that Swingline stapler and chuck it right out the window. Okay, maybe don’t do that. But at least put in an eBuy order for a few boxes of paperclips. Kim and Joyce will thank you.
• Don’t tape receipts to a sheet of paper for travel reports. I know, I know, you’re trying to be helpful. But remember the scanning? When we process a travel report if there is any superfluous backup included we are asked to remove it from the report. That means that your coffee and donut receipt from the airport that’s taped next to your parking receipt and your taxi receipt has to be pried ever so gently and slowly off of your carefully taped up Sheet o’ Receipts. It’s a bit like trying to pull a price tag off of a gift and still having the price glaring at you after the fact. Again, for this, paperclips or an envelope are your friends.
• Please begin using the Portrait Pcard Support form and discontinue using the landscape version. The portrait pcard support form actually gives you more character space in the description areas. And since we’re on the whole portrait/landscape debate let me give you a bit of smartphone advice–friends don’t let friends take videos in portrait mode. Portrait for pcard, not for video. You’re welcome.

And that’s it! Nothing super crazy to change up. Just a few small adjustments that will help us run a bit more efficiently. To recap: my grandmother was odd, paperclips are awesome, and portrait mode is for pcard forms. Now go pick up your stapler, I was only kidding about throwing it out the window.

Hit me up in the comments with suggestions for new BMB Buzz topics. Share with me your plans for the summer. Or tell me what you prefer for phone videos: portrait or landscape.