Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 25 (1996)

Two new arrivals threaten our hero's peace of mind, but he's got plans to deal with both of them.

Monday 4th
An early meeting with Kay Bridges in Personnel, to discuss Danny's replacement. External recruitment is frowned upon at the moment, so an internal candidate will be sought. Keen to extract some benefit, I bid for someone of full Planning Executive grade, and Kay promises to see what she can do. Back at the ranch, Danny has developed an advanced case of demob fever (a month in advance, in fact), and is offering pleasure flight-sims over Hollywood and Santa Monica to any female staff member who'll share a chair with him. Rose, five months gone and grinning wickedly, accepts his offer and demands an early takeoff, at which Danny takes off to the safety of the gents-only crew room. I'm going to miss the lad, no doubt about it.

Tues 12th
Two weeks later than promised, Office 95 arrives. Amrat performs a server installation, the girls say Word 7.0 looks just like Word 6.0 with knobs on, and I'm left alone with Excel. The future looks bleak until I discover that the magic of import/export filters lets me work in 123 then convert the results to Excel worksheets for use as evidence of suites trial participation. This seems a good way of easing myself into the project, and I decide to try it for a few weeks. Amrat arrives again, this time offering to install his personal copy of Access free of charge, and I show him off the premises. The girls arrive complaining that Danny has placed a self-running indecent PowerPoint presentation in their Startup folders, and I decide I might not miss him after all.

Mon 25th
Kay says she's found me the perfect applicant - Janet Mason, currently with Marketing and due for promotion to Executive grade. I ask why she wants to move, and Kay replies that she's scheduled for transfer to Colin Smiles' Training Empire unless she can find something else. With everything thus explained, I agree to interview her. Later Cathy says she's heard Janet's up for the job, which is great as she's really good and they've been friends since graduate intake days. Rose and June suddenly start chanting 'five-one, five-one' to the tune of 'Amazing Grace', and equally suddenly the penny drops - Janet's appointment will leave me alone with an all-female team. Nervously, I retreat to my office and the comfort of 123's filters.

Thurs 28th
The Democratic Suites Decision Society meets under cover of a session entitled 'Understanding Your Win 95 Briefcase'. The general feeling is that SmartSuite must win on principle (the principle being that Llewellyn doesn't want it to), and that it's therefore my duty, as Office tester, to take a dive. I express misgivings, but Andy points out, rather cruelly, that my standing with Llewellyn is already so low that I've nothing to lose. Agreeing to think about it, I head back to interview Janet Mason, who is, as reported, keen, pleasant, clever and skilled. On her way out she chats briefly with Cathy, and offers Rose cut-price stock from her sister's baby boutique. I plan to confirm her appointment with Kay, but a 123 filtering problem crops up, and I decide to do it in the morning instead.

Friday 29th
Danny enters, ashen-faced, to say that his girlfriend's job is off and could I possibly swing it for him to stay on. Smoothly retaining my outward calm, I tell him I'll see what I can do. I then spend an uncomfortable half hour telling Kay Bridges why I want to retain someone I recently described as 'terminally unpromising', and a further ten minutes warning Smiles of the threat to his head-count. At lunch time Kay rings to say that Danny can stay. At 4.30 I put Danny out of his misery, just as Smiles turns up with Janet Mason on a tour of Suites Trial Participants. Danny says he's really grateful, and I'm really grateful for fireproof glass as five pairs of eyes bore through my office door. Later though, en route to the safety of the weekend, I allow myself a private, wicked grin.