New Stuff to Know

I received a very interesting report last night that is very new to me. It contains information about you elves in my Sector that I have never seen before. I think you should know about it.

I know we have seen a lot of new stuff this year. The Elf University thing is fantastic I think. But there has also been a number of changes to basic rules as set out in the Elf Community Standards and the Terms of Service for the website.

I have looked at these things. They are no big deal to me and for those of you who are here right now they are likely no big deal for you.

Next week I will be part of the Elf Supervisors meeting in Costa Rica. I’m really looking forward to going to that. But I have a feeling this new report I got will be something they talk about. If they don’t, I’m certainly going to ask about it.

The report details for me the activity of all elves in our sector. I can see your points, reviews, and each and every report you send to the North Pole. From this report they are asking me to give each of you some kind of review. I don’t think I need to do this YET…but I think this is a new thing that is coming.

Perhaps most concerning to me on this report is a column that shows me which elves are due to be “decommissioned”. That’s a fancy word that means you’ll be retired as an elf. There are a lot of elves with this status.

I know there has already been a great number of elves who were decommissioned a month or so ago as part of the site changes. But I was not aware this would be an ongoing thing.

They want me to sign-off on this procedure every four months. Yes, every four months I have to review your activity and status as an elf. Many of you will be rewarded for your activity and some of you will be decommissioned due to your lack of activity.

I have a lot of concerns and questions about this.

But before I get to those next week in the meeting I wanted to just let you guys know this was happening. I will answer any questions you have about it when I return. I am not sure I am ready to take questions right now about it. I need to understand it better first.

I grow concerned about the number of elves we have. But I am more concerned with the number of inactive elves we have.

Nobody really expects you to be active much at this time of the year. Frankly, there’s not much to do. So if you are gone for periods of time, especially at this time of the year, I don’t think that’s a concern. We all get busy. We all have family stuff. We all go on vacation. It’s okay.

But the elves on this list set for decommission have not been active in more than a year. That’s not a good thing. And I agree this needs a solution.

It looks like they have one and we will learn it together.

On another issue, some have written in to ask when our final site location for our sector HQ will be announced. The answer is that I have no clue yet. We are the largest sector, at least when it comes to the number of elves. We need the largest location and that is the big challenge. I know Santa wants this all done by Christmas in July, so I suspect we’ll know more sometime before then.

If I hear anything I’ll let you know.

About this Elf: Elf Pinky

Elf Pinky was recruited from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1992 and has since served as an instructor in sleigh flight theory at the North Pole Institute of Aviation. She worked very hard to earn her elf credentials, working a second shift first as a tool repair technician in Santa’s workshop and then as an engineer in the Wrapping Department designing wrapping machines. Pinky in recent years was a recruiter and trainer of sleigh test pilots and flies under the call sign Barracuda. Last year she served as a Flight Operations Director and demonstrated outstanding judgment and maturity in her duties supervising more than 400 elves, pilots, reindeer handlers and sleigh freighters.