Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 12 (1995)

The I.T. axe falls, there's illness in the Planning Department and our hero receives a great honour.

Tues 29th
A packed house at the management meeting to hear details of the I.T. cutbacks. First to go is the Solvents Stores project, which has been grinding on for as long as any of us can remember and has yet to assist in the storage of a single solvent. An ashen-faced Chris Llewellyn, wickedly dubbed 'King' (King Prawn - Pawn) in the wake of the workstation copying enquiry, announces redundancies too, although the omission of Colin Smiles, top of his hit list since the Software Audit fiasco, indicates that he may not have had much say in deciding who goes. Andy Miller, addressing him openly as 'King' to general sniggers and a disapproving look from Costello, asks how Solvents Stores are going to manage. George Barker chips in with 'like they've had to all the time his lot have been farting around.' Costello calls order, and we move on to budgets.

Mon 5th
June has gone down with flu, only to be expected but nevetheless something we could well do without as we're still trying to catch up with work displaced by the infamous Dorking Biggie. I watch anxiously for symptoms among the remaining troops, and order a temp from personnel. She turns out to be Julie, Rose's niece, who actually seems to remember something about Word for Windows and planning documentation from her Biggie stretch. She's just got started when Smiles appears and insists on giving her a 30 minute familiarisation session, during which she fills him in on a few planning details he's not sure of. Danny asks her out, and Rose refuses. I pinch myself to make sure it isn't all a terrible Biggie-revisited nightmare.

Fri 9th
Amrat tells me I'm in line for a great honour, namely to be the company's first non-technical user of the Chicago M7 beta. I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about, so he explains that it's a pre-release version of the new Windows 95, supplied to selected customers who've proved their mettle at the systems coalface. I call for urgent backup and find, suprisingly, that Cathy's all for it, saying it's going to be the biggest change since Windows replaced DOS and the earlier we get it the better. I suggest that if she's so keen then she should have it, but Amrat says that's not possible as pre-production software isn't allowed on PCs which are used for important work. I tell him, coldly, that I'll think about it.

Thurs 15th
To Bill and Bob's leaving do, in the lounge bar of Peg's. Old hands from pre-Llewellyn days, they've drawn the short straws in the I.T. redundancy stakes, although they don't look particularly unhappy about it. Bob explains that they've set up their own software consultancy , based in a startup unit at the Old Brewery and complete with a six-station NetWare configuration bought second-hand from Solvents Stores. Pausing between pints he tells me the going rates for good multi-user applications skills, and I briefly consider a mid-life career switch leading to early and comfortable retirement. I ask if they reckon they'll actually get work at those rates, and he says they already have. It's a feasibility study for a new Solvents Stores system. I leave them singing COBOL marching songs and melt into the night.

Mon 19th
Over to the I.T. Lubyanka and a demonstration of the Windows 95 beta, now installed on Amrat's PC. Cathy was right - it looks as different from Windows as Windows did from DOS. Amrat explains that it's a much more intuitive interface than the 'old' Windows, but has some trouble finding the copy of 1-2-3 which I ask to try out. I click the 'minimise' button and the program disappears altogether, although it's apparently my fault as that's now the 'close' button. Cathy tries to run MS Project, but releases the mouse button too early and launches a C++ compiler instead. I'm about to say a final 'no' when Amrat unexpectedly breaks down and admits that if I won't take it he'll have to give it to Colin Smiles. Compassion gets the better of me and I agree, on a strictly sale or return basis. I leave with a sinking feeling, but at least there's been no mention of NT Servers.