Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 54 (1998)

Our hero gains an empire, Amrat loses his, Andy escapes unscathed and George escapes to the garden centre.

Monday 7th
Change has always come slowly here, and the sheer scale of the cost/performance evaluation shake-up has left most of us dazed. A third of our in-house manufacturing capacity is to be outsourced, as is half our transport, while savage office cuts see Sales Admin 'merged' into Office Services, and the Bedford outpost closed altogether. Meanwhile the winners include (surprise, surprise), Llewellyn, whose I.T. empire will actually grow - and me, as manager of a new Project Resources department encompassing Planning and Purchasing. However my survival means that the Grim Reaper has come for George Barker, my long-time mentor and Father of the All Stars Chapel. Unable to face the cry of Et tu, Brute? with which he'd undoubtedly greet me, I've been avoiding him all morning. In the midst of great relief dwells an even greater guilt.

Tuesday 8th
Broadleys certainly know how to play the restructuring game. Cathy, promoted to Management One, will supervise Project Resources' purchasing activities. She's over the moon, but it actually means that she'll be doing George's work for much less money, with me taking overall responsibility for no extra pay. On the bright side, everyone else has kept their job (even Danny), and Broadleys have honoured the 75p overtime hike. The B2s, meanwhile, have been hired to merge the two departmental application systems, so at least we'll see some familiar faces. Less happy, however, is Amrat. He's lost his Systems Support sub-department, ostensibly due to a flattening of the management structure, but actually as Llewellyn's pay-back for his post-takeover manoeuvrings. Instead he'll be project-managing the B2's applications conversion, so we'll be seeing him too. It'll be like old times - but with one face tragically missing.

Thursday 10th
I finally face George, and ask him to let me buy him a drink. He say no, but only because the drinks are on him. In Peg's he explains that, although Broadleys' generous Early Retirement terms mean he doesn't have to work again, he and his wife are buying a nearby garden centre business, and he's like the proverbial pig in straw. On hearing the figures I consider a last-minute ER application of my own, but George points out his 10 years extra service, and I reconcile myself to continued nose/grindstone proximity. Later we're joined by Andy 'Teflon' Miller, who has, as usual, escaped completely unscathed from the upheavals. He has astonishing news - the Old Man himself is to step down, leaving the company he built up from nothing. Glasses solemnly raised, we toast an era that is now, well and truly, ending.

Tuesday 15th
A project meeting for the new PR super-department application system. It really is like old times, with Amrat and Cathy arguing over the technicalities, while Bob sits back with his patented "you'll never get it to do that, Guv'nor" expression firmly in place. I point out that communications will be a problem, since we'll be split between the offices of the old departments. Amrat says the answer is Lotus Sametime, a new 'virtual teamware' product which allows co-workers to 'find each other, communicate and share documents'. This causes Bob to interject that I'd benefit more from getting off my backside and walking across, and the meeting degenerates into a pro- and anti-teamware slanging match. Broadleys may be our masters now, but the old crew still know how to tango.

Friday 18th
At least the Christmas shut-down has survived, so we're all off for a welcome two week break. Before we go, we're treated to a trial run of the new PR application. It promptly crashes, bringing hoots of laughter from Rose and June, severe embarrassment to Amrat and an unworried shrug from Bob, who mutters "teething problems", picks up his Yuletide Malt, and leaves. Clearly unimpressed, Cathy reminds Amrat that her team are due to start using the system in five weeks' time, and suggests he gets his finger out. Cathy's reference to 'her' staff reminds me that the next generation really is on the way up, and that we've by no means seen the last of the changes. I think of George and his garden centre, and for a moment feel a pang of pure envy.