One-Fifth of a Five Sentence Five-Year Plan (Submitted Annually)

Seymour Cray (From: Wikipedia)

"For most routine transactions, records creation is managed through forms. Indeed, a branch of records management known as 'forms management' specializes in the creation of such documents. Forms routinize the types of information collected and the manner in which it is displayed... At higher levels of administration, the use of forms to control records creation is usually less successful... Some administrators, particularly those with reputations independent of their positions, go beyond merely creating records in very general forms or those that incidentally do not conform with 'standardized' procedures and use records creation as a way to flaunt their opposition to bureaucratic procedures. Seymour Cray, for years one of the world's most respected computer scientists and also an employee of Control Data Corporation, mocked the company's policy of creating one- and five-year plans by annually submitting a one-sentence plan, noting that this sentence was one-fifth of his five sentence five-year plan." (52) --Frank Boles, Selecting & Appraising Archives & Manuscripts

Seymour Cray was the creator of the first supercomputer. He was clearly a man to be respected by his peers at the Control Data Corporation. Just as clearly, he was a man who knew his true position in the world. One can clearly picture him, sitting at his desk, signing off on yet another one-sentence plan and forwarding it to his superiors at Control Data as he chuckles under his breath, "I wrote a one-sentence 0.2 year plan because I can write a one-sentence 0.2 year plan!" And we can envision Control Data's executives meeting to discuss what to do about that mischievous Seymour Cray. And the records managers cursing Seymour Cray because he just didn't conform to their perfect five-year plan categories. But what could they do? The man invented the supercomputer. I suppose they just had to let Seymour be Seymour.