Hey, guess what? It's almost the end of the day. That means it's time for me to do all the filing I've been putting off all day. That means that once again I'll get to wade through the sea of UN-ALPHABETIZED FILING! Okay, so it's technically all alphabetized, but everyone else in the office seems to have some trouble with the basic concepts. A refresher:
Go by the first letter of the first word (unless it's 'the', etc). If two words have the same first letter, look at the second letter, and so on.
A shorter word does not make it go before a longer one automatically, you still have to look at the letters and see which one comes first in the alphabet. So "Woo" comes after "Wong", no matter how much you may think otherwise.
If it's a person's name, general protocol says you go by the last name. Unless their name is the name of the company (eg: Jane Smith Inc.), then you put it under 'J'.
The prefix 'Dr.' is not used for alphabetizing. Sort of like how we don't use 'the'. Remember, just because they're a doctor doesn't mean it's not a normal name, so you use the first letter of the last name.
Just because a number starts with a 6 doesn't automatically make it bigger than one that starts with a 3. For example, 34565 is bigger than 651. If it's easier to file by the first number (sort of like alphabetizing) then that's okay, but do it consistently.
Geez!
For people who want to learn, grow, get inspired, and stay silly.
Ah, this is where a standard protocol is in order. I suggest you draft one to show your boss that you have that "Wow" factor. You see, if a number normally has, say, 6 digits in your office, then you might assume that a three digit number (365) is either the equivalent of 365000 or 000365. What a nightmare of organization! I also suggest you fill in the zeros even though they may seem redundant to people who don't understand that there is a system.
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