Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 35 (1997)

Our hero scores, Andy misses, the girls cry foul and Office is sent off.

Tuesday 28th
A special management meeting, to debrief the Smithsons trip. Andy, still strangely quiet, takes much pre-kickoff ribbing about the glamorous Oona Jardine. I, meanwhile, score the golden goal with my report on Smithsons' superior Materials Monitoring System. Costello nods almost continuously in agreement, while Llewellyn sits through it in grim silence, not surprisingly as the word is that Amrat, still in Glasgow, is emailing back daily reports of Smithsons' I.T. brilliance, cc'd to Costello on Costello's orders. With a grin, Costello announces that the first Smithsons manager to visit us will be Oona, which 'should put the smile back on Andy's face'. Andy's face turns a luminous scarlet, and we all troop off for another ribbing session in the canteen.

Wednesday 12th
'Great' news from the I.T. Lubyanka - as the firm's official Microsoft Office testbed, we're first in line for the new Office 97 release. The girls, still militant over the impending MM upgrade, say they won't use it. I quickly decide to give Cathy a taste of hands-on responsibility, and leave her to sort it out. In a disturbingly brief space of time she negotiates an agreement whereby Office 97 can go ahead provided Office 95 stays on the server ready for instant reactivation. I mail Llewellyn, who replies that it's not possible due to licencing problems. I reply that in that case he'd better talk to the girls himself. He replies that perhaps the licencing problems can be overcome after all. The upgrade will happen next week.

Thursday 20th
The Office 97 installation team (Amrat and a junior sidekick) announce that Offices 95 and 97 can't, after all, coexist, due to registry and shared code problems. The girls prepare to walk out, stopping only on receipt of an Office 95 installation CD-ROM which Sheila locks in her filing cabinet. Office 97 has exciting new file formats, but we can't use them because no-one else in the firm could then read our output. June comments on the situation negatively and in very plain language. Amrat shrugs and says it wouldn't happen at Smithsons. I load Excel, and am greeted by a cartoon Einstein asking me what I want to do. I type in 'go back to using Lotus 1-2-3', which leaves the Great Man momentarily speechless. Such is progress.

Friday 21st
Purchasing's Joan 'Diplomacy' Davies marches in and tells June to stop sending them rubbish. Quickly donning riot gear, Cathy, Rose and I separate the combatants and investigate the problem. It transpires that our 'Word 6.0/95 compatible' files contain major layout errors, which they're ascribing to major typing errors here. The girls ascribe differently, and prepare to walk out again. Leaving Cathy with another taste of responsibility, I phone I.T. and demand Amrat's immediate presence. Strangely, he requests no explanation, but arrives quickly, gives instructions on re-saving of updated documents, uninstalls Office 97, reinstates Office 95 from his own, unlabelled CD and says that everything will now be OK. Amazingly, it is. By now I want an explanation, but find that Amrat has disappeared in the confusion. Not for the first time, I get the feeling that All has not been Revealed.

Tuesday 25th
Oona arrives, as disturbingly fetching and formidable as ever. She gives the management meeting an overview of cross-group Contracts synergy opportunities, with help from a semi- dumbstruck Andy. Llewellyn then glumly announces a revised, cross-group synergistic Materials Monitoring project, containing elements of Smithsons technology. Later my I.T. mole (Amrat) says they're actually dumping Llewellyn's MM system and replacing it with Smithsons', prompting an All-Stars' homeward celebration. Oona joins us, and Andy's just warming up with his Old Man impression, when a younger, more handsome version of Sean Connery arrives. Oona introduces him as her husband Fraser (a barrister), they buy drinks all round, then head off for an evening at the theatre. Andy goes quiet again, then works his way steadily through a lengthy series of Peg's finest beverages. In comradely fashion we work alongside him, then all share a taxi home.