Group Efforts 21

Group Efforts
The Diary of a Workgroup Manager

Episode 71 (2000)

Previously in Group Efforts:
Our gripping five-night summer special ended with disaster for Purchasing, as their Win 2000 upgrade went seriously pear-shaped and destroyed their FAT partitions. It looked like disaster for either 'Nasty Chris' Llewellyn or Deep Upgrade too, as the Broadleys Board demanded a scapegoat for the fiasco. We asked YOU to decide who should carry the can and leave the office. By the narrowest of margins (53% to 47%), you voted for Deep Upgrade to walk the plank. Will DU accept his fate, or will he drag others down with him?

Will the All Stars make a last-ditch attempt to save the lad - sorry, agent - who fought so bravely for honour the of the Free Tea? And will the sight of Llewellyn in full smug-triumphal mode make even Cathy stop thinking that he's all right once you get to know him and appreciate his total commitment to Integrated Management Information Systems?

To find out, read on…

Monday
A sombre air fills the building, as we wait for news from Broadleys HQ on the fate of Llewellyn and Deep Upgrade. Neither of them is at his desk this morning, and the word (via the ever-reliable Matt) is that they've both been suspended while Group IT do a thorough investigation. The other word, meanwhile, is that one of them won't be coming back. The All Stars are in no doubt about who we'd prefer the non-returner to be, but with 'Houdini' Llewellyn's track record no-one's too hopeful that he won't pull off yet another great escape, leaving his colleague to carry the can.
One factor in our man's favour, however, is that his role as 'Deep Upgrade' is known only to the inner circle of the Windows 2000 Resistance Movement, while to everyone else he's just Amrat, the Systems Manager whose big day went horribly wrong. Llewellyn suspects him of working for us, but can't prove anything, and we all agree that it's vital for things to stay that way. Now all we can do is wait.

Tuesday
The ominous news from Kay Bridges is that Group Human Resources have asked for Llewellyn and Amrat's files. Andy says this can only mean one thing - they're checking to see if either of them has enough previous warnings for a no-comebacks sacking, and if not, which of them would be cheaper to make redundant. Amrat, worryingly, leads on both counts, and such is the resulting gloom that what should have been the most amusing sight of the year - Cathy standing helplessly by as the B2s try to reconstruct her disks from a surprisingly tatty-looking box of tape cartridges - doesn't even raise a smile as we head for the canteen.
Starved of hard news (even Matt's drawing blanks now) we consult the Oracle, but apart from promotional packs of winter slug pellets, George doesn't have much to offer, while Peg says her sources have dried up too. Despondent, we fortify ourselves with a final round of strong ales, and trudge off into the night.

Wednesday
Our worst fears are confirmed as Llewellyn appears, large as life and apparently twice as pleased with himself. Cathy, at least, seems glad to see him, not least because the B2s have now wiped her server as well as her workstations, and are refusing to leave until, as they put it, they've "shown the bugger who's boss". We're less happy about Llewellyn's return, but such is our desperation for news that we grit our collective teeth, say it's good to see him back, and ask him what he knows about Amrat.
With smugness way beyond the threshold of just provocation to manslaughter, he replies that he can't say, but that he suggests we book one less place for the office Christmas meal. Witnessing this, even Cathy, Llewellyn's erstwhile ally, gives him a look of disgust and walks away, although Matt, a close drinking buddy of Amrat's, seems oddly unperturbed and just smiles. It's left to Andy, as Communications Officer, to deliver the official All Stars response, which crudely (but not without justification) compares Llewellyn to a certain bodily orifice. That done, we disperse, sadly, to our offices.

Thursday
This will go down in history as one of our darkest days. At 11am Amrat appears, flanked by Group IT Enforcers, and proceeds to clear his desk. In what seems like a decent gesture, Broadleys have allowed him to take his beloved technical documentation with him, and by the time they've finished, he and the Enforcers need a trolley to carry the stacks of manuals, technical bulletins and disk boxes to the car park.
The lad's incommunicado, of course, but Andy and I manage to snatch a word with him when Danny calls Joan Davis "Lard Mountain", stranding the Enforcers on the far side of a corridor-blocking altercation. All he says, however, is that he can't talk now, and that he'll meet us in Peg's tomorrow. Then the Enforcers catch up with him, and they're gone. A promising career has ended, and all for the sake of a Windows upgrade and Llewellyn's skin.

Friday
With breathtaking insensitivity Llewellyn has ordered the Upgrade 2000 programme to restart immediately, this time with Personnel as its first victim. Kay looks on helplessly as a pair of IT minions prepare her workstations for surgery, but then there's a phone call, and suddenly it's Llewellyn who looks helpless. Ashen-faced, he tells his minions to stop work, then leaves without saying a word. Back at the ranch I find Matt also on the phone, grinning from ear to ear. He says the others will want to hear this, and, assembled in the Canteen, we learn that Broadleys have appointed a Group Systems Manager, with authority over divisional IT departments.
His brief is to stamp out unauthorised Linux servers, IP routing and the like (as well as ill-conceived upgrade programmes), and, pragmatically, the Board decided that a talented poacher would make the best gamekeeper. As a result the new GSM is Amrat Advani Esq, whose first act has been to instruct our IT manager to put Upgrade 2000 on indefinite hold. Later, as Peg's finest flows freely, we salute the brave Lad who has grown into a true Manager. Modestly, Amrat says he owes it all to us, and, touchingly, especially to me for teaching him how to survive in the office jungle. Moist-eyed, I raise my glass and propose a toast to justice, Windows (98) and the Line Management Way.

Will Amrat use his new position to wreak revenge on Llewellyn (do bears use the woods as toilet facilities - ed)? Can Llewellyn still destroy Amrat's career by exposing him as 'Deep Upgrade'? Do the B2s realise that wiping a NetWare server is a really stupid way to go about recovering a set of workstation FAT partitions? Find out the answers to these and other questions in Episode 72!