How do I prevent a field from updating when I open the document

If you want to use the keyboard shortcuts to insert the date and time, you can continue to do so; just add another step: immediately after inserting the field, click in it and press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to unlink it. This will convert it to plain text, and it won't update.

If, on the other hand, you're creating a new document for each customer request, then it would be more efficient to create a template that includes the CreateDate field. This will update once, when you create a new document based on the template, and then remain constant. That will give you the starting time; you'd still need to insert (and unlink) your time field when you close the document (OTOH, if you just need the elapsed time, you can look at the Total Editing Time in the document Properties).

I thought the following would help, but no.  Do you think if I tried ti import my unopened document into another program would forgo the field updates for this one time?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918793

Disable the "Update automatic links on Open" option

When you disable the Update automatic links on Open option, documents may open faster. You can manually update links later.

To disable the Update automatic links on Open option, follow these steps: 1.Start Word.

2.In Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button (In Word 2010, click File), and then click Word Options.

 3.In the Word Options dialog box, click Advanced, and then scroll down to the General section.

4. Click to clear the Update automatic links on Open check box, and then click OK.

To manually update links, follow these steps: 1.Start Word.

2.In Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button (In Word 2010, click File), point to Finish, and then click Edit Links to Files.

 3. Click the link that you want to update, and then click Update Now.