Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 21 (1995)

An unholy alliance ends, a Winter Offensive is planned, and our hero receives a compliment.

Tuesday 7th
Quite like old times at the management meeting, with George and Llewellyn back at each other's throats, their unholy alliance apparently in tatters. The cause is George's submission of a three-figure inter-departmental expenses claim for six weeks of lunchtime Interface Evangelising, which Llewellyn is refusing to countersign. He says the idea of him paying George's bar bill is totally absurd, while George says he has it on good authority that the sandwiches alone at Smiles' thinly-attended Management 95 events cost twice his figure. Costello says it's results that count, and asks if George's sessions have been useful. We all give ringing testimonials, and Costello instructs a fuming Llewellyn to split the tab, telling George that his half can be Purchasing's contribution to the Windows 95 Initiative. Future off-site evangelising is to be strictly private-sector funded, but we all agree it was good while it lasted.

Thursday 9th
I'm just getting to grips with the Three Oaks budget when Amrat turns up wanting to talk about Windows 95 System Policies. I tell him it's my policy to have meetings by prior arrangement only, but he says there's no time for bureaucracy when the company's in the middle of the most significant upgrade of computing technology in its history. He explains that Policies will let me control which files each user can read, write and execute, and I say that NetWare lets me do that already. He replies that the Windows-based features may be significant in the longer timeframe, which I take to mean that NT Server is back on the agenda. I cite restricting Danny's computing activities to planning-related ones as a sensible Policy objective. Amrat says that, unfortunately, he doesn't have access to military-grade control technology, so can't promise anything. Unimpressed, I return to the Oaks.

Wednesday 15th
Mum-to-be Rose is off sick, the first of I hope not too many absences. Supertemp Julie is thankfully available, and enquires about a long-term position while her auntie's away on maternity leave, which strikes me as a pretty good idea. At lunch Andy Miller tells four of us, in strictest confidence, that Llewellyn is preparing a Winter Microsoft Offensive, aiming to implement not just NT Server but Office 95 too on the back of the Windows 95 Initiative. I assume Amrat already knows, but suggest we inform the Lotus-reselling B2 Systems in the interests of fair play. Andy says it's already done, by direct-line fax rather than the Llewellyn-controlled email system. Thrilled but unsettled by this brush with subterfuge, I regain my composure with seconds of Megan's excellent Jam Pudding.

Thursday 23rd
My entire team slopes off for a day's Windows 95 Interface Training, part of a crash-course scheme which we departmental managers have unanimously described as the most bone-headed thing we've ever heard of, but which Smiles insists is essential if the Initiative timescale is to be met. I'm beginning to agree with Danny that the Initiative is all talk and little action (he puts it less politely), and that we'd have been better off just installing it and finding our own way from there. When I said this at a Management 95 session, Smiles replied that as a systems sophisticate with a peer-sharing skillset, I perhaps didn't fully appreciate the curve gradient facing colleagues from legacy-structure environments. Apparently that had been a compliment, although coming from Smiles I still suspect otherwise.

Tuesday 28th
At the management meeting Llewellyn launches into a sales pitch about the fantastic new features available to 32-bit Windows 95 programs, adding that we would be wasting our investment in the Windows 95 Initiative if we failed to install, at the earliest opportunity, applications which leverage those capabilities. Costello, to everyone's surprise, advises Llewellyn that a little less transparency wouldn't go amiss if he wants to retain his credibility, and that rushing into an early suite decision could be something we'd all regret for a very long time. Llewellyn turns bright red, and we move on to Christmas holiday arrangements. Afterwards Andy provides the background, namely that Llewellyn has tried the Microsoft dinner-party trick on Costello, and it's gone down like the proverbial lead balloon. One - nil to the workers, scorer C. Llewellyn (o.g.).