Spoken after the plates

After the plates came back

These notes come from sittings and packs we actually delivered. They mention the awkward parts on purpose. A plate that pleased everyone in the room is usually a plate that guessed.

They would not fill the gap. That annoyed me in the room, and it is the reason I trust the rest of the pack. The Tuesday blank is still the first thing I show a new clerk.

I came for a single plate to take into a partner meeting. Giorgi sent the table back because the units changed mid-week. The second table made a plate I could actually point at. The meeting was shorter than I had feared.

The configuration reading was ninety minutes and a two-page note. I had wanted a year of usage drawn the same afternoon. Nino refused, and she was right: we did not yet agree which latch was the one in force.

Monthly notes arrived on the twelfth, except the month I sent records on the ninth. That plate was late, as they had said it would be. The letter is dry. I still open it before the rest of the post.

The Friday overtime that would not line up

Marjanishvili printer’s counter, winter sitting

The counter book used one mark for a reprint in the morning and a different mark after four o’clock. Nobody had mentioned this in the envelope. Giorgi held the overtime plate. The sitting, when it finally happened, began with that held plate on the table and a clerk explaining the afternoon mark. We redrew once. The morning series did not need to move. The partner who had wanted a single smooth line left with two plates instead, and with a note in the margin about the four o’clock change of hand.

A latch that was not the latch

Didube workshop, configuration reading then briefing

The director circled a date when “the new night mode” began. The person who actually set the latch said the new mode had been tried, abandoned, and tried again. The configuration reading produced a two-page note with three states, not one. The later usage plates showed a drop that started well before the last attempt. We did not join those facts with a stroke. The director called the pack incomplete. The latch-setter still keeps a copy of the three-state note above the panel.