Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 65 (2000)

Cathy stays unplugged, Llewellyn hunts his prey, Matt turns the screw and a portal closes its doors.

Thursday 1st
Diplomatic relations between Planning and Purchasing are not yet fully restored following Cathy's unilateral plug-pulling on her half of the Linux Pilot. The consensus among the All Stars is that leaving me holding the Penguin is a Gross Violation of Line Management Solidarity, an offence which can, in severe cases, incur the ultimate penalty of Withdrawal of Tea. Cathy, however, seems unconcerned by this prospect, and remains unrepentantly unplugged.
I'm demanding an immediate re-plug, and have an ally in Systems Manager Amrat, who's upset at seeing his project half-dumped. Cathy, meanwhile, has acquired the support of Llewellyn, a foolish move as he'll undoubtedly demand payback with interest later. I'm in no mood to warn her of the dangers though, and for the moment I'm biding my time, content to express my displeasure by allowing Danny's latest Joan Davis cartoon to remain on the departmental noticeboard. If Cathy wants a war of attrition, then that's what she'll get.

Wednesday 7th
It's interviews day for our vacant Planning Executive position. The shortlist contains two internal candidates, Monica Hall from Accounts and Matt Smedley from Broadleys HQ, plus an external applicant, the exotic-sounding Katrina Bloemfontaine. Apparently Monica and Cathy hate each other, but I try not to let that influence me too much in Monica's favour. The girls, meanwhile, strongly favour Matt, whom they judge to have 'buns like boulders'. None are so smitten, though, as Danny is with the strikingly tall and blond Katrina. She's well qualified for the job too, but in the end Matt's relevant experience wins the day, leaving Danny wailing inconsolably into his mid-afternoon Red Bull, and Rose and June chanting "Buns like a rock" to the tune of something called "Thong Song". Sensing potential mayhem, I give them a quick pep talk on sexual harassment policy, and get on with the paperwork.

Monday 12th
We have an aspiring dot.com billionaire in our midst. His website describes itself as 'Europe's Numero Uno Larging Lifestyle Portal', and identifies its proprietor as one J. Daniel SlimShady Moss III, who turns out, naturally enough, to be Danny of this parish. The site itself isn't a problem (apart from a few questionable links), but the fact that it's running on our Linux server and hogging half the firm's external bandwidth is.
At the Court of Inquiry, Danny says it's a development version that went live by accident, but Llewellyn seems more interested in who routed its IP address through our firewall. Danny swears he did it himself, with the aid of a Bulgarian friend from an online hackers dungeon. This has the ring of truth for me, but Llewellyn (who I suspect was hoping to nail a certain Systems Manager) is clearly not satisfied, and vents his anger by demanding full recompense for the 'stolen' server and comms resources. This amounts to nearly a month of Danny's salary, but the lad agrees immediately, leaving me wondering just how lucrative the Larging Lifestyle is, or whether he does indeed have a partner in crime. Either way, SlimShady's Portal will darken our doors no more.

Tuesday 20th
It's Matt's first day, but I barely have time to welcome him before the management meeting beckons. As a treat, Llewellyn gives us a talk on the implications of Windows.NET, the new computing direction which will, apparently, see applications and data rearchitected into a cross-Net federation accessed via a 'Universal Canvas' interface. Afterwards in Peg's, Amrat says it's really the old stuff repackaged so as to make it harder to split Microsoft up, and doesn't exist anyway so we needn't worry about it.
Reassured, I arrive back at the Ranch in time to hear Matt telling Cathy that inter-departmental cooperation works both ways, her Ruislip A forecasts will have to wait until he's finished the Linux pilot report, and he'd prefer it if she didn't shout at him like that again, because if she does he'll have to make a formal complaint and that will take up even more time. Clearly stunned, Cathy beats a hasty retreat, and the team bursts into applause. It seems Matt's experience may be more relevant than I'd thought.

Friday 30th
Andy and I are enjoying our mid-morning teas when Cathy comes over and, rather meekly, asks if she can have a word. Without further prompting, she offers to rejoin the Linux pilot, and to do the next two progress reports to make up for her absence. Slightly bemused, I accept, noting that she doesn't even bite back at Andy's comment about 'bringing the girl to heel', which he makes at undiplomatic volume as she walks away. Clearly Cathy has realised that excommunication from the All Stars is not a fate to tempt lightly, with my subtle expressions of censure no doubt playing their part too.
A lunchtime celebration is called, and at the bar Peg says she's heard I've had a result. I'm about to wax lyrical on All Stars power when she says that once Llewellyn realised Cathy wasn't going to shop Amrat over Danny's IP routing it was odds-on that he'd stop backing her over the Linux business, and with Matt turning the screw with 'unavoidable holdups' in materials forecasts, she had no choice but to give in. Illusions rudely shattered, I look through to the other bar and see Matt. He raises his glass, I tell Peg to fill it, then return, subdued, to my comrades.