The Case of the Bottomless Briefcase

“The children are down, so you should have a nice, quiet evening,” my wife promised as she headed out the door. It was just what I wanted. Finally, I would get to sort out the accumulation of papers, papers, papers I’d been lugging back and forth to meetings for the past too many weeks.

It had been beyond humiliation. Have you ever tried to find a certain piece of paper during a meeting while everyone sat and watched as you leafed through page after page of unruly, unfiled items? Have you ever buried your face deep in the pile to keep from seeing the amused or tolerant expressions on everyone’s face?

How would I ever get this mess under control? The task seemed so overwhelming that I was immobilized. There were two thick packets from last Saturday morning’s attempt to get organized, a big brown envelope with Tuesday evening’s accumulation, and five file folders woefully outgrown and inadequate. Would I have time this evening to straighten it out? In some past attempts I’d been able to get most items sorted into categories, but had run out of time and hadn’t filed them. The result was two thick packets held together with monster clamps. I was the frog jumping one foot out of the well and falling back two, the sorcerer’s apprentice trying to mop up an endless fountain of paper.

It was in this frame of mind that I sat at the dining room table staring forlornly into my bottomless briefcase. I’ll confess my eyes were heavy, and I caught myself nodding a couple of times. Suddenly, a sharp rap on the front door startled me. Visitors! I’ll never get these papers sorted, I complained as I crossed the living room.

“Permit me to introduce myself,” I heard from a tall, gaunt figure bowing slightly in the doorway. “I am Brother Holmes, and this is Brother Watson. We’re your new home teachers.”

“Umm, yes, yes, quite,” murmured the smaller man.

I was surprised, because it wasn’t even near the thirtieth of the month, and I hadn’t heard that Brother Johnson had been reassigned. But I was glad to see them, for in spite of my pretended complaint, any interruption of a dreaded task is welcome.

I sat the brethren at the table and we inflicted final indignities on the apple pie from supper. Brother Holmes seemed especially appreciative of the flavor of the Jonathan apples. I hadn’t even known what kind of apples they were, but it seems he is something of a connoisseur. Brother Watson mentioned that his companion keeps dried apple chips in an old Persian slipper back at his apartment.

Brother Holmes startled me, as he concluded his discourse on orchard husbandry and his piece of pie simultaneously, with the observation that I seemed to be having difficulty with my church correspondence. How could he have known that?

“Elementary, my dear brother,” he replied, with the slight hint of a twinkle in his eye. “Your briefcase latch is bent slightly and the stitching on the side has cut a bit into the leather. Obviously you’ve had occasion to pack it too tightly. The fact that you’re working with it at the dining room table suggests that you either have no regularly organized work desk or, if I may risk giving offense, you don’t have space enough on your desk to sort a variety of papers. If the former, then you indeed will have a problem with your correspondence; if the latter, you have problems due to clutter. I suspect the latter, for an elder with as ancient a briefcase as you carry must surely have found a need for a private working desk by now.”

“Really, Holmes!” objected Brother Watson.

I was caught by surprise at my visitor’s clear perceptions and by his candid analysis. And his dispassionate observations could hardly have been offensive, inasmuch as they were accurate and were offered as matter-of-factly as had been his description of apple culture.

I gave a reassuring nod to the embarrassed Brother Watson and turned to his intent, hawkish companion. “You’re right on target, Brother Holmes. Paperwork is the bane of my life. I wish we could just do the work with the Saints and not worry about reports or memos or rosters and the like. I’ve come to resent it.”

“A common malady among brethren whose zeal outweighs their executive skills,” offered Holmes.

“Holmes, I must insist …” interjected Watson. But the senior of the two continued in unheeding innocence.

“Considerable efficiency is demanded of the broad-based priesthood of this church. It’s not enough to be righteous; you must also be efficient.”

“Well, I guess I know that,” I admitted. “But it’s always been a problem to me. I’m afraid I’ve been called to a position beyond my capabilities.”

“Not so!” was the fervent rejoinder. “Beyond your skills, perhaps, but certainly not beyond your capabilities. There’s a distinct difference.”

I was intrigued. Perhaps he was right. I had chided a friend at work for devoting years to his profession and hours to his religion and then complaining that he didn’t find religion satisfying. Perhaps I’d done the same in devoting years to teaching the gospel and only hours to learning how to administer in it.

“All right,” I challenged, “skills I lack. Perhaps my home teachers can help.”

“Splendid!” announced Holmes with a satisfied smile to his abashed companion. “We’ll leave instruction in your duties to your priesthood leaders, but perhaps we can help you with the mechanics of filing and retrieval. When shall we start?”

“I’m available,” I suggested, clearing the pie plate and the dishes from the table.

“Judging from the shape of your briefcase,” said Holmes, “we’ll need all of the dining table, the buffet table, your sofa, the chairs, and perhaps the floor. Please begin by sorting your papers by topics.”

“I’m sure you could do a better job of sorting them than I could,” I offered.

“Probably,” Holmes said. “But a gentleman never reads another’s mail.”

“Quite right,” Watson mused.

Fortunately, I’d done much of the sorting on the Saturday previous, but I’d not had time nor scheme to file the topics properly. From his jacket pocket Holmes produced a small leather packet which appeared to be a combination block calendar, “to do” list, and pad of three-by-five-inch papers. Once I had sorted my collection into piles, Holmes gave me the pad and instructed me to leave a three-by-five label on each of them, marking the labels with a thin red ball-point refill he’d taken from a little pouch attached to the inner edge of his scriptures.

My mentor then surveyed the piles—about three dozen of them. “It appears that the number of topics you have selected will require four notebooks, ordinary three-ring types. You have them, I’m sure,” he told me.

At first I couldn’t imagine where, but inside of five minutes I’d produced one from a very old Teacher Development course, another from a correspondence course I’d never finished, a third from my wife’s cosmetic selling days, and a fourth with a vivid sunset which was to have been a birthday present for our daughter.

“To separate the topics, you will need a set of dividers for each notebook. I don’t suppose you have four sets of three-ring alphabetical dividers?” queried my sharp-eyed efficiency expert.

“No,” I replied, “my files are almost impossible to categorize alphabetically. I’ve tried using colored label dividers, the kind you write on yourself and slip into little tabs.”

“And that works for a while, until you start getting items that don’t fit into your categories.”

“Yes,” I answered. “Then I have to make new dividers and try to slip them in behind the others that they’re most closely associated with.”

Holmes observed, “But you rarely do this because you don’t have the spare dividers made up, the tabs are on the wrong location on the divider, and when you do prepare them you sometimes forget where they are, or they get hidden by another tab. This violates your sense of order and it’s not really satisfying.”

“Brother Holmes, you amaze me.”

“Watson, your bag, please,” directed Holmes. Though I’d not noticed it before, the milder of my visitors had a rather large briefcase of square dimensions which he quickly placed on an empty end table. Inside were three sturdy notebooks, a maroon accordian file, a three-hole punch, and several small plastic containers held with rubber bands to a ruler. I didn’t want to appear too inquisitive, but I did note that the plastic containers held a variety of items: chalk, paper clips, dimes and nickels with a wad of cotton, and I think one had a felt pen, a ball-point pen, and a pencil. I’m sure there were other items I didn’t see.

Watson reached into the accordian file and pulled out four sets of notebook dividers with alphabetized tabs on the edges. “These are easily obtained at even the discount stores these days,” Holmes explained. “I’m sure in light of your extreme condition Watson would be willing to apply them to your cause, wouldn’t you, Watson?”

“Umm, yes, yes, quite,” harrumphed his friend.

“Brother Holmes, you don’t understand. My files don’t lend themselves to an alphabetized system,” I protested.

“Of course, of course. Nevertheless, let us proceed. Gather the piles into which you have sorted your papers and place them into four stacks. The four stacks will represent four broad categories, one for each of the four notebooks.”

I did as he asked.

“Now,” he instructed, “put the topics in each stack into some kind of logical order, from top to bottom.”

I did so. Then from the accordian file Watson produced four eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheets of card stock and punched three holes on the margins. I was told to list the alphabet from top to bottom on each sheet. On the first sheet next to letter “A” I was told to write “Index to all files.” Next to “B” was to be written the topic of the first batch of papers in one of my four stacks. I wrote, “B: Stake Calendar.” The next batch was “C: Roster of Stake Officers.” “D” read “High Council Speaking Assignments.” “E” was “Stake Conference.” By the time I’d reached “M” I’d finished the first stack.

“Now I’ve got it!” I said to Holmes. “I insert this card in the front of one of my notebooks and file each topic behind the appropriate letter. There really isn’t any alphabetizing. It’s a topical system.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Holmes. “And after you’ve used the notebook for a while you’ll remember which topics are filed under which letters without having to refer to the card in the front, or for that matter to divider ‘A: Index to all files.’

“What about these extra dividers, ‘N’ through ‘Z’? I haven’t used them. Should I discard them?”

“No, no,” cried Holmes with some exasperation. “You’ll need most of them as new items come to you. When you need to file your next new topic, put it under ‘N.’ Every time you get a new topic you simply decide for which of the four notebooks it is most appropriate—Youth Programs, Melchizedek Priesthood, or whatever—and add it on the master card sheet at the front, and, incidentally, on the sheets kept behind ‘A’ of Notebook One, ‘Index to all files.’”

“Brother Holmes, this is remarkable. But what happens when the notebooks get too full? You should see the volume of paper I get!”

“‘Purge thy files, O my brother. Weed thy fat and bulging book. Do not its intentions smother, but let wisdom guard its look.’” Or, put another way, buy yourself some manila folders. Duplicate the same system—that is, Set One should coincide with Notebook One: Topics ‘A’ through ‘N’ or whatever. The second set of manila folders should coincide with Notebook Two, and so on. Put the items you want to keep for historical purposes in the folders and destroy the papers of no further use.

“We had a case once in which a brother had his wife serve as his secretary. When he got new items he slid them immediately into an accordian file: ‘To Be Read,’ or ‘For Immediate Action,’ or ‘To Be Distributed,’ or ‘To Be Filed.’ Before putting anything in ‘To Be Filed’ he marked the appropriate notebook number and topic letter in the upper right-hand corner. His wife then filed the items for him and he could retrieve them readily from the notebooks. When he had spare moments of waiting, he would go through the notebooks and circle his corner mark on items which could be retired to his manila folder file, or mark ‘X’ on those to be discarded. Confidential materials he filed himself.

“What an efficient partnership they were! The end result, of course, was that he became confident and happy in his calling. There’s little that’s more discouraging and demoralizing than having an undone task hanging over your head and not knowing quite how to bring it under control.”

I was so pleased with the results of the whole evening and the prospect of being able to attend my meetings with my head held up that I neglected to get the phone number of my new home teachers before they left. But no matter; “Information” will have it as a new listing, and I remember Brother Watson mentioning that they live on Baker Street, wherever that is.

Illustrated by Dale Kilbourn