Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 10 (1995)

Panic stations, temporary difficulties, an urgent return and an unexpected departure.

Wed 5th
Panic grips the building - we've achieved a major competitive knock-out, and the whole company is on red alert. The timescale for the contract (already dubbed the 'Dorking Biggie') is of course totally unrealistic, which means taking on temps, a move guaranteed to get the girls' backs up and bog me down in training and paperwork. After lunch a lorry-load of rented PCs arrives, four of which are connected into our network by Amrat. Cathy asks him if copying the workstation software has any licensing implications, a fair point considering the recent Software Audit Hoo-Ha. I receive an email reply from Llewellyn, telling me to mind my own business and make sure my staff do too. Andy Miller turns up at the 5pm emergency management meeting wearing his dad's old ARP Warden's helmet.

Fri 7th
A stroke of luck - staff hostility to the temps is lessened by the discovery that one of them is Rose's neice, Julie. She's accompanied by a trio of similar age (c. 19), none of whom, naturally, has used Word for Windows before. I'm about to start the weary process of explaining what a menu is when Colin Smiles appears and announces himself as the Temporary Training Manager. It's unclear whether the title refers to his tenure or the status of the trainees, but either way he's a life-saver, not something I'd ever imagined him being. The temps are booked for a 2pm Word Familiarisation Session at Professor Smiles' Academy, aka the canteen. Later I learn that the NT server project is temporarily on hold due to the Biggie, but that we're still prime suspects. I thank Peg, and order another round.

Tues 18th
The temp situation is not working well. Temp-produced documents contain so many errors that I've had to assign Rose and June to permanent correction duties, which, as they rightly point out, means that they can't get on with the work themselves. Given the huge cost of employing the temps, it doesn't seem a good deal. I say so at the management meeting, to a chorus of 'same here' from around the room. Brison replies that in this instance cost doesn't matter but 'kicking ass in the marketplace' does, a reference I think to the defeat of our major competitor in gaining the Biggie. Afterwards Andy Miller offers me a private viewing of some contract details which will, he says, make my hair curl. They do, and I go home a worried man.

Mon 24th
Real panic now - our NetWare server, the most faithful friend a user ever had, has become choked by the volume of Biggie documentation and sits there issuing 'volume PLANSERV nearly full' messages every minute. Amrat, first on the scene, announces an unexpected solution - we must save our documents as Word for Windows 2.0 files instead of the normal 6.0 format. Apparently 6.0's multi-level undo feature makes its files at least three times bigger than 2.0's, although with the number of corrections in the temp-originated documents it's more like six. We also have to open and re-save all our existing files, to free space on the server. I leave Amrat to explain it to Rose and June, and head quickly for the Biggie progress meeting.

Thurs 27th
Summoned to an 8.15 emergency meeting, I find an atmosphere so electric you could run your dishwasher off it. All work on the Biggie is suspended, and, incredibly, Roger Brison Esq., Finance Director, is now pursuing interests outside the company, or, as Andy Miller cruelly puts it, on his bike. The story is that the MD, en vacances in Barbados, was tracked down by a financial journalist whose questions about loss-making contracts and share prices triggered an immediate return to base. One look at the Biggie figures had been enough to earn Brison one of the Old Man's famous Force 10s, although apparently it was a fax from FAST the following morning about workstation software copying that sealed his fate. At the meeting, chaired by the MD himself, everyone is silent, with Llewellyn clearly attempting to achieve personal invisibility. Later the girls wish a tearful Julie and friends goodbye, while an unusually subdued Amrat unplugs the rental machines. Even Peg is quiet as she serves the 6.30 meeting of the Old Survivors Club. We live, as they say, in troubled times.