Retention calendars: why ‘thirty days’ is not a sentence

“Keep thirty days” looks complete until you try to draw it. Which thirty? Calendar days, job nights, or the last thirty successful copies? If Friday fails and Saturday is a rerun of Thursday, have you kept Friday or not?

In the ledgers we draw, retention is three lines. The first is the product’s own calendar — what it will overwrite without asking. The second is the crate in the other room — what a person would still fetch. The third is a hold: a letter from counsel, an auditor, or a director that says a month may not be overwritten even if the product is hungry.

Georgian organisations we visit often have the first line in software and the second line in a book. The third line lives in someone’s email. When all three disagree, the ember mark goes on the page and we stop. We do not pick a winner. The client does, in writing, before the next overwrite.

If your policy is a single number, bring the courier book to Tamar Mepe Street. The drawing is faster when the book is in the room.