Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 27 (1996)

It's hardball time at the workface, our hero leverages his managment skills, Amrat moves in and Cathy saves the day.

Monday 6th
I arrive from a weekend's thoroughly unwanted, activity-based, leadership-oriented, team-building management training to find my least favourite welcome, an email from Llewellyn. This one requests, nice as you like, that I give a demonstration of Excel 7.0 to the Suites Trial review meeting next week. Clearly someone has tipped him off that I haven't actually been using Excel for calculations, merely for printing out worksheets converted from 1-2-3, and he's determined to exploit it. Deploying my newly-acquired pro-active problem resolution skills, I resolve to find out who's betrayed me, settle the score, and make sure Llewellyn gets as good as he gives. The gloves are off, and it's time to play hardball.

Thursday 9th
I grill Amrat about the Excel Betrayal, stopping only when he appears to lose consciousness under the heat of my desk lamp. Quickly recovering, he denies all knowledge and asks when he can install Access 7.0 and start work on the OLE automation project. I tell him that I'm pursuing a policy of non-cooperation and will be vetoing all inter-departmental business until the traitor owns up, but not to tell Llewellyn that or he'll know he's got to me. He assures me that he'll ask around, then spends a long time talking to Cathy, during which they both repeatedly cast glances in my direction. Sheila brings me a coffee and asks if I'm OK. I reply that I'm fine, and if that's the way Llewellyn wants to play it, then that's fine by me as well.

Wednesday 15th
Suites Review day, and I'm prepared to go in guns blazing and tell Llewellyn that he can put Excel where the sun doesn't shine, and that nobody intimidates me, by email or otherwise. Fortunately Cathy sees me first, and suggests an alternative plan. As a result I introduce her to the meeting as my nominated Excel Product Champion, then sit back and enjoy her admirably polished demonstration. Afterwards Llewellyn, with apparent sincerity, congratulates me on a superb piece of team involvement, while Costello says that Product Champions are a brilliant idea, and if this is the sort of initiative the Management Weekends produce, we'll have to have a lot more of them. Andy and George overhear this and give me homicidal looks, but on the whole I think I've come out well ahead.

Tuesday 21st
Amrat asks if I've stopped vetoing yet, as he's desperate to start work on OLE Automation. Given the go-ahead, he disappears and returns with a huge Dell Pentium, complete with five boxes of software and a network connector protruding ominously from its behind. I appoint Cathy Data Protection Officer, charged with keeping Amrat safely away from Anything Important. She tells him to wait until she's double-checked our server security, and he disappears again, this time returning with a trolley-born desk. I ask if he's bringing a sofa and cocktail bar too, and he says no, he'll rough it with the rest of us. He then plugs into our network, and the LaserJet 5 disappears from everyone's desktops. Cathy unplugs him, the LJ5 reappears, and the project is suspended pending technical review.

Friday 24th
Life has taken on a strangely topsy-turvy quality. Llewellyn keeps sending me enthusiastic Product Champion emails, filled with words like 'holistic' and 'empowerment', while a stream of hate-mail from Andy and George assures me that if they find themselves waist-high in filthy water again I may not survive the overnight orienteering section. Normality returns with June and Rose, who complain that Danny is at it again with his self-running slide shows, the latest demonstrating animated bullet-point builds in a salacious manner. I call him in and appoint him PowerPoint Product Champion with immediate effect, telling him he'll be giving an interactive demonstration at the next Suites Review meeting. He disappears, white-faced, in search of the manuals, while I accept an invitation to a homeward beverage from A & G, made on the strict condition that I don't come up with any more smart ideas.