Years ago I sued my company for gender discrimination, based on walking the main hallway and seeing only men's names on the doors to managers' and supervisors' offices.

The suit was based on who applied for promotions, who was eligible to promote, and the proportion of qualified women who had been passed over for promotion. I had personal paper copies of promotional records, but of course the legal system required certified copies.

By the time I finally got legal action to have the records turned over to the court, it was determined by my employer that the records had been "lost" and that it would be too expensive to try to recover them (turn on a computer and do a search).

The court bought that specious argument and dismissed the case. However, women have been promoted since then, a few, at least, though the current conservative tide makes me think that any progress on equal pay, equal promotion, is ephemeral.

Today I was asked to provide company-wide data on certain aspects of our service department for the years 1997-2000. After I finished ROFL, I explained that records during those years were most likely kept on paper and that I was not the section head for that project at that time. That person has retired, and I doubt very much he kept any records.

Even the federal government, I pointed out, doesn't require records earlier than 7 years prior, so asking for 13-year-old records is absurd. (No, I didn't use that exact word; the messenger did not deserve my scorn).

It did occur to me that the organization's karma, cause and effect, is at play. With their determination to eliminate records older three years and their "carelessness" with problematic records and their secrecy (now) with promotional lists, they pay the price with employees' reciprocal laissez-faire attitudes. (BTW, I'd have provided the data if I had had access to it.)

What goes around, comes around--whether you live long enough to see it, or not.