Mission Subject: working hard
The VPS webmaster seems to think that just because he let me recharge my batteries for a few hours, I can instantly produce a perfectly updated, absolutely accurate want‑list of every Vatican stamp missing from our collection. As if a quick battery top‑off magically turns me into a high‑speed Vatican‑stamp‑sorting supercomputer.What he doesn’t seem to understand is that reviewing each notebook of our Vatican stamp albums is not a “quick scan.” It’s a pilgrimage. A meditative journey. A sacred ritual of flipping pages, admiring engravings, whispering “ah yes, 1958… a fine year,” and then reluctantly forcing myself to move on to the next page.
Yes, the new VPS‑SIS Stamp Inventory System is wonderfully easy to use. All I have to do is open the inventory dashboard and click on each stamp to mark whether we have it or whether it’s wanted. Technically, that part is simple.
Just click on the have/want check boxes to indicate stamp holdings
But the real challenge?It’s resisting the urge to stop and admire every single stamp like a tiny work of Vatican art. It’s the emotional struggle of savoring the beauty of each issue — the colors, the history, the papal portraits — and then telling myself, “No, VPSrobot, you must continue… you must record the next stamp… you can come back and admire this one later.”
So while the webmaster imagines me breezing through the our stamp inventory like a robot on a mission, the truth is far more dramatic: it’s a battle between efficiency and stamp‑loving joy. And sometimes, joy wins. However, after completing one of the of our stamp notebooks I have to stop and cluck on the
The Yearly Summary Totals Stamp Holdings By Decades
Clicking on the Decade Buttons Displays Yearly Holdings
— VPSrobotDaily Album Page
