Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 57 (1999)

Llewellyn's in the dark, the IBMs are in their boxes, George is in his element and Smithsons are in deep trouble.

Monday 8th
I genuinely cannot believe it. A week ago we'd successfully parallel-run the Project Resources super-app and were ready to go live. Today the IBMs are back in their boxes, the old Planning and Purchasing systems are still grinding away, and a near-homicidal Joan Davies' desk is piled high with temporary Purchase/Allocation dockets. The reason is Windows 2000 (or NT 5.0, as Amrat calls it), which we'll all, apparently, be using soon. Llewellyn has decided that retro-fitting it to our new intranet infrastructure would pose 'unnecessary disruption possibilities' (IT-speak for ' we'll probably mess it up'), and that it would be better to 'thoroughly validate the Win 2000/Super-App combination' (i.e. 'we don't know if it'll work') before installing both together. In the meantime I'm getting all the flak, especially from Cathy 'my team needs familiarisation time' Reeve. It was ever thus.

Wednesday 10th
The Project Resources team meeting, which I've been dreading. Surprisingly, it goes quite well, mainly because Joan, from whom I'd expected an unrelenting tirade, is instead relatively muted, a condition I attribute to Cathy's beady eye. Rose and June, meanwhile, are actually happy with the super-app delay, as it's generating large volumes of overtime. The main subject of complaint turns out, in fact, to be Windows 98, which by general consent is noticeably slower than its predecessor. Young Tracey asks if Windows 2000 will solve the problem. Not wanting to mislead so innocent a soul, I pass the question to Cathy, who tells her, without batting an eyelid, that it 'quite possibly may do'. Relieved (if slightly shamed), I move on to Non-Stock Returns. Sometimes it's handy to have a Ruthless Young Thruster on your side.

Thursday 18th
To Peg's with great relish, for the inaugural George's Get-Together Night. Garden Centre life is clearly suiting George, who hands out free seed samples, tells a bizarre story about Jerusalem Artichokes, opines that our IBMs have really been recalled to have their RAM tripled, and bets Andy £5 that Smithsons will be sold off within two months. He also has an inside story on the employment prospects of C. J. Llewellyn, namely that Brison's decided he's useful as an IT poodle and too weak to pose any threat, so intends to keep him on. This causes general gloom, although it's quickly dispelled by another round and the news that Brison is letting Llewellyn sweat in order to soften him up completely. A poodle-barking contest ensues, and we receive a polite but firm noise abatement notice from Peg before filing happily out into the night.

Tuesday 23rd
Amrat pops round to say that relief from the Win 2000 problem may be at hand. Apparently Broadleys IT top brass are having a strategic rethink following rumours that Microsoft are themselves having second thoughts about exposing Win 98 customers to the joys of NT. As a result we may end up going for Win 2000 Personal, which, if it actually appears, will be Win 98-based, not NT-based like Win 2000 Professional, which we wouldn't be using even though we're professional users. Thanking him for clarifying matters, I ask if this means we can have our IBMs back, and he says it quite possibly may do. Reiterating my gratitude, I show him the door, and ask Sheila for another pad of overtime authorisation forms.

Friday 26th
Smithsons has been sold, just like that. Andy says it's down to Brison's anti-Scots bias, which he's harboured since catching food poisoning from a Burns Night haggis in 1991. Kay Bridges, rather more credibly, says it's down to Broadleys board, who always planned to dump it as soon as they got a decent price. I fire up NetMeeting and call a glum-looking Alan Jenkins, who says the news is bad - the buyer is the asset stripper who originally bid for the whole group, and no-one in Greenock expects anything less than wholesale slaughter. Later in the canteen I hear Llewellyn complaining about the loss of his precious leased link, and Andy about the loss of his £5 to George. Overcome by a sudden anger, I suggest they think about the people who face the loss of their jobs, then head gratefully back to mine.