Group Efforts 21

Our Hero has gone to the big garden centre in the out-of-town retail park, and now his former colleagues speak about the Bernard Pierce they knew....

Peg, landlady, The Rose and Crown (aka Peg's Bar).

Bernard's a gent, and no mistake. He was quite high up at JA Brown (there was even talk of him being in charge there at one time), but he was always polite, bought his round, and could hold his drink too, which I like in a man. Mind you, him and his mates used to raise the roof sometimes with that All Stars club of theirs, singing their weird songs (there was one I remember that went "Llew-ell-yn, Llew-ell-yn,,", to the tune of "This old man, he had one..."), and telling jokes about how many IT Managers it took to change a lightbulb. You knew there wouldn't be any trouble at closing time though - and couldn't they ever put it away!
Things are quieter now, with Bernard and George gone to run that Garden Centre of theirs. They still come in now and again, but it's mainly the younger crowd - that nice boy Amrat who got the important job over at Broadleys, and Matt Smedley who took over from Bernard (cor, if I was 20 years younger!). Andy Miller's head of the All Stars club now, but to tell the truth he seems a bit lost without his old pals, and the youngsters don't seem that interested in singing songs or telling lightbulb jokes. Still, we've all got to move on, haven't we? Bernard seems to be doing really well, and he says his only regret is not leaving five years earlier. I'm glad he's happy.

David Chapman, Managing Director, JA Brown, Director, Broadleys Group PLC.

It's no secret that I was initially a somewhat reluctant appointee as MD of JAB. However I've developed a great affection for the company, and that's in no small part due to the presence of Bernard Pierce, until recently its Planning Manager and longest-serving member of the line management team.
        When I first arrived at JAB Bernard was seen as part of the problem, a typically lethargic, change-resistant middle manager in a long-established family firm that had failed to adapt to PLC status. I soon learned, however, that his integrity and commitment, and his instinctive approach to people management, greatly outweighed his shortcomings. Not only that, but some discreet performance monitoring revealed that his department was, in fact, one of the most productive in the entire Broadleys group. Without seeming to try, Bernard instilled in his staff the same unwavering commitment to 'getting the job done properly' that he showed himself. That's something that can't be taught in Management School, whatever we'd like to think.
        Perhaps the most amusing aspect of Bernard's career was the way in which he and our IT manager, Chris Llewellyn, repeatedly found themselves collaborating on new technology projects. Neither of them wanted it (they were like chalk and cheese), but somewhere back in the mists of time (a p2p networking trial in 1994, I believe), Planning had become established as the firm's de facto IT testbed. After that they were joined at the hip. Bernard always managed to make these schemes theoretical successes, while delivering no actual benefits (or in some cases even results) whatsoever. It drove Chris Llewellyn to distraction, and I must confess that I sometimes enjoyed the spectacle.
        It's fitting that Bernard's last act here was to save the company. That's no exaggeration; if Neil Barrett had been allowed to continue with his cost-reduction measures, the group's short-term results would have improved but JAB would probably have gone under within a year. I'm not proud of my own part in this episode - I tried to convince the Board that Barrett was a destructive force, but I didn't try hard enough, probably because I didn't want to be seen as a dissenting voice. Bernard wasn't afraid to put his position on the line, a tremendously courageous thing to do. I received some flak in the Boardroom for losing him so soon afterwards, and I consider that a fitting punishment for having failed to defend the company myself.
        I visited Bernard's garden centre recently, to buy some plants for the conservatory. He and George were both there, and we had a long and very enjoyable chat (excellent home-made cakes in their coffee shop, by the way - I thoroughly recommend it). Bernard was, to use his phrase, like a pig in straw, clearly enjoying every minute and bursting with pride as he showed me round. He's a good man, one of the best I've known, and I wish him every happiness and success in the future.

Neil Barrett, formerly Finance Director, JA Brown and other Broadleys Group subsidiaries, now Company Accountant, Bi-Cheep Discount Stores.

Pierce? Don't mention Pierce to me! Of course he was Chapman's hatchet man, don't think I didn't know that! Mr Super-Smooth's had it in for me since East Anglia, but he couldn't do his own dirty work, could he? Oh no, his lot never get their hands dirty - that's not the way it's done in the upper echelons! Instead he gets some clapped-out time-server who's due for the knackers yard anyway to stand up in the management meeting and stab me in the back! How much did he pay you, Pierce? Twenty quid? Fifty? I'll bet it was only a tenner. Hold onto it, that's how the rich stay rich, isn't it?
Broadleys will regret this. When their share price is round their ankles and the City's complaining about debt levels, they'll wish they still had Neil Barrett around to bring a bit of sunshine to the bottom line. All their Gentlemen's Clubs and funny handshakes won't save them then, and I'll be there laughing as they go down. There are things I could tell you about Broadleys, but I won't - not yet, anyway. Just keep watching them though, and remember what I said.
I went to Pierce's garden centre last week - I was passing and saw him drive out, so I thought I'd take a look around. What a shambles! Excess stock everywhere, twice as many lines as they should be carrying, and - wait for it - a disabled toilet (not even a legal requirement with their square footage, and anyway there are ways round it). It was the same in their so-called Coffee Shop - little bowls of sugar on the tables (the wastage!), two teabags where one would have done (the wife likes it weak anyway), and hulking great lumps of cake (ever heard of portion control?!!) that looked as they'd been made by some amateur instead of bought cost-effectively from a proper bakery. They won't last. Pierce'll pee his pension down the drain covering the losses, and retire a pauper. Serves him right.

Rose, June and Sheila, Planning Clerks and Planning Dept Administrator, JA Brown.

Bernard was one of the best. Not that he was a pushover, mind you - all that Mr Roly Poly stuff was just a front, and he could be as hard as nails if anyone tried to mess him about. But if you were straight with him and did your job, then he'd really look after you. And of course with Bernard there was never any of the hanky-panky you get with some bosses (although it may surprise you to know, Bernard, that some of us wouldn't necessarily have minded if there had been - you might have put on a few pounds now, but we always reckoned you must have been quite tasty when you were younger!)
       The thing with Bernard was, he knew how to handle people. Amrat, for example, was dead keen, and Bernard had to reign him in a bit for his own good. Danny, on the other hand, is Mr Bone Idle, and Bernard had to give him a boot up the backside now and then to remind him that he was actually supposed to be working here. Matt knew where he was at from day one, and Bernard just let him get on with it.
        We like to think that he never had any problems with us, although we did take the mickey out of him sometimes, especially when he was feeling guilty about playing with that film-buff's CD in his office! Probably the one he had most trouble with was that bossy little cow Cathy Reeve (we never really liked her), but she got her come-uppance in the end over the Barrett business. Bernard saved the day there too, of course - what a hero!
        Matt's turning out to be a good boss, but he does things his own way, and some of the old atmosphere's gone. It used to be like a circus in here sometimes, but somehow we always seemed to get the work done. That's how Bernard was - easy-going and professional at the same time. We miss him.

Cathy Reeve, Purchasing Manager, JA Brown.

I've blown it, haven't I? When I joined JAB as a graduate trainee, I thought that people like Andy Miller, George Barker and Bernard Pierce were just a bunch of dinosaurs waiting to be rendered extinct. I still thought that when I became Purchasing Manager, and let that fool Chris Llewellyn lead me up the garden path with his drivel about 21st Century industrial organisms built around digital nervous systems. Then when Barrett came I did it again, only this time it was really serious, and nearly destroyed the company. Now I'm a pariah, and if Bernard hadn't had the guts to stand up for what he believed in, I'd be an unemployed pariah to boot.
        I was too pushy when I worked as a Planning Exec in Bernard's department (it's a fault of mine, I know - my mum's always said so). The people who let Bernard set the pace for them are doing really well - look at Amrat, with his own office at HQ, and Matt, who's only been at Management Two for five minutes but is already far more respected than I'll ever be. But of course I had to push for more responsibility, then push for my own department, and when I got it I had to pull a fast one on Bernard (that Linux business) just to show what a tough cookie I was. And how did I end up? As an inexperienced manager with no-one to turn to for advice. I used to laugh at the All Stars and their Free Tea rituals, but if I'd listened to them a bit more I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in now.
       I never really got a chance to talk to Bernard before he left - I wasn't invited to his private leaving do at the Rose and Crown, and I didn't stay long at his official bash at the County (it's embarrassing when no-one wants to talk to you, and anyway from the looks Bernard's "girls" were giving me, I wasn't sure it was safe). I did think about going round to see him at his garden centre, to thank him for the help he gave me when I worked for him and apologise for the grief I caused him. But I'm not sure whether he'd want to see me, so I've left it.
        I have learnt from this though. In fact I'm still learning from Bernard - when I come across a problem, I try to think what he'd have done, and do it his way. He'd probably find that hilarious, after all the lectures I used to give him on the need to adopt modern management techniques. I'll make it, but it probably won't be at JAB - too much bad feeling about, and people have long memories around here. I've already started looking at alternatives. I'll always be grateful though, Bernard, and I'm really sorry that things went so wrong between us.

Christopher J. Llewellyn BSc (Hons) MBCS, IT Manager, JA Brown.

If you'd asked me to compile this comment-piece a few months ago, it would have been a very different document. For years, Bernard Pierce was my bete noir, the leader of the Worshipful Company of Line Management Luddites and the man who single-handedly frustrated every attempt I made to bring this company's IT infrastructure up to date. I feared and despised him in equal measure, and it was because of the frustrations I'd experienced that when Neil Barrett came along I jumped at the chance to implement change - any change - without having Bernard there at every turn blocking my way. Some might even say that my support for Barrett was Bernard's doing, although I wouldn't make so harsh a judgement.
        Now, of course, I realise that Bernard stood for legacy values that have ongoing validity. Receiving my redundancy notice made me see that Barrett's rationalisation measures had a human cost, and from that point in time onwards I was committed to saving the company by getting them reversed. I was unable to attend the management meeting at which Broadleys MD was made so graphically aware of the effects of Barrett's insanities, but I'm proud to think that, had I been there, I would, myself, have said those same things to him. As it was, Bernard took my place, and nothing should detract from the courage he showed in confirming my views.
        I freely admit that I allowed myself to be taken in by Barrett, but for those of us who move in senior management circles there is always the danger of being drawn into the insularity of the Directors Suite. Cathy Reeve, who assisted Barrett to very much the same extent as I did - arguable a greater one, in fact - but who works at a more junior management level, might perhaps have been expected to maintain a better grasp of the workface impact of his measures. However she's inexperienced, so really shouldn't be blamed too greatly.
        Bernard Pierce is now, of course, revered as one of the great figures in the history of JAB. Chatting to him at his private, invitation-only leaving get-together at the Rose and Crown (or "Peg's", as we call it), I assured him that I would do everything I could to maintain the principles that he and I had fought so hard for during the dark days of Barrett, but that, as he so well knew, fighting for principles can be a very lonely task and I couldn't guarantee success. I think he was gladdened - perhaps, even, humbled - to think that I would be carrying on our work in this way. You're gone, Bernard, but thanks to me you won't me forgotten.

Spartacus Johnson (aka Spark), IT Systems Manager, JA Brown.

Bernard? Cool!

Andy Miller, Contracts Manager, JA Brown

Where do I start? When I was first made up to Contracts Manager, Bernard took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, like George had done for him. I was terrified going into my first management meeting, mainly because some smart-Alec had told me that the Old Man always gave new boys a Force 10 just to break them in. Bernard told me that he'd been terrified at his first MM too, but that it hadn't been half as bad as he'd expected. Hearing that from an old hand made me feel much better, and I got through it fine (and there was no Force 10!).
        A lot of people got the wrong idea about Bernard, thinking he was a bit of a bumbler. A lot of people got seriously wrong-footed as a result, which was always fun to watch (and extremely profitable when I was able to run a book on the outcome!). He really knew how to handle that tosser Llewellyn, who was always coming up with grand schemes to wire us all up to his computers so that he could control everything. Bernard would go along with it, then make sure it all fell in a heap in such a way that Llewellyn couldn't pin anything on him. Pure genius! He could have made a fortune (well, a lot of pints, anyway) lecturing managers in other Broadleys subsidiaries on how to do it, but he preferred to keep his methods to himself. The mark of the true artist, I suppose.
        Bernard's real secret weapon was his staff's loyalty. I get on pretty well with my lot, but Bernard's crew would have killed for him (and in the case of Rose and June, quite often nearly did), which meant that no-one could undermine him. Just look at the way they froze out that pushy graduate intake girl Cathy Reeve when she tried it on - she didn't know what had hit her! You have to earn that kind of loyalty though, and Bernard did it by looking after his people. The most extreme case was Danny Moss. If ever there was a total liability it was young Danny, but Bernard persevered with him and in the end turned him into a useful junior Exec, able to do his job but without too much ambition - every departmental manager's ideal employee, in fact. Perhaps Bernard wasn't so daft after all! Incidentally, some people say that Danny reminds them of me when I was his age, but that can't be right, can it?
        We all have our weak points though, and I did sometimes worry a bit about Bernard's attitude towards his female staff. I mean, I wouldn't exactly climb over Michelle Pfeiffer to get to Rose and June, but Sheila was an absolute stunner when she was younger, and although she's filled out a bit since getting married (they always do, don't they?) she's still definitely up there in the Premiership. Yet Bernard never showed the slightest flicker of interest, which most of us considered a terrible waste and bordering on the unnatural. Still, I've never heard his missus complain and he has got two kids, so I suppose he must be functional in that department.
        For me, the best times here were when the three of us - me, Bernard and George - ran the guts of JAB's head office operation, deciding Line Management strategy in the canteen at lunchtime and meeting up to review our progress in Peg's on the way home. Now I'm the only one left, and though I still see the others (they really should get a bar in that Garden Centre!), it's not the same. As All Stars FoC it's my job to show Matt Smedley the ropes, but he seems to know them already, and in fact knows a lot more about dealing with Broadleys HQ than I do. Sometimes I wonder what I'm going to do. Those are the times when I could really do with having Bernard around to give me advice.

Mrs J. Davies, Senior Purchasing Clerk, JA Brown.

I've been in Purchasing since Mr. Barker's day, and I can remember Mr. Pierce when he was still a young management trainee. Of course he and Mr. Barker became great friends, and it's nice to think of them working together again now. I visited their garden centre recently, and they gave me a free gladioli plant in its own pot. What a lovely gesture!
Mr. Barker was a first-class manager, and our department was the pride of the company. It's not my place to criticise, but I did feel that Mr. Pierce was perhaps a little lax in the way he ran Planning. Some of the language those young clerks of his would come out with was quite shocking, and as for that Moss boy - well, he should have been dismissed years ago, but for reasons I could never fathom Mr. Pierce kept him on. That said, they did maintain the flow of documents fairly well, which is extremely important and more than can be said for certain departments (such as Mr Miller's for example).
Our current Purchasing Manager, Miss Reeve, was, of course, with Mr. Pierce before she took over here. I found her very good at first, decisive and definite about what she wanted. However I did feel let down by that terrible business with Watford A, and she did play a part in making all those cuts that Mr. Barrett wanted, many of which really weren't sensible. She also seems to have fallen out with most of the other departmental managers. It's not for me to say, but I don't think she'll be here much longer.

Kay Bridges, Human Resources Manager, JA Brown.

I liked working with Bernard - he was a pro of the old school, in the best sense of the term. Like all the best managers he wasn't afraid to show his human side, and that created a tremendous bond between him and his team. His department had the lowest staff turnover of any in the building, and that didn't happen by chance - his "girls" (a terrifying bunch, actually!) would stand by him through anything, mainly because they knew he'd do the same for them. You don't see very much of that these days, more's the pity.
        We had a slight problem here following the introduction of legislation on sexual harassment. Some of the managers (and not just the older ones) still thought that the odd suggestive remark or pat on the backside was a perk of the job, and we were suddenly faced with a clutch of complaints, many of them valid and some involving extremely senior executives. Not a single one of them, however, involved Bernard, and when I congratulated him on this, he seemed genuinely shocked that anyone would violate a position of trust in that way. Bernard had an old-fashioned code of honour which went with his liking for military metaphors - his colleagues were "comrades", their plots to frustrate Chris Llewellyn's ambitions "campaigns". He would have made a good Brigadier.
       Bernard was at his best in the weekly management meetings, where for years he maintained an entertaining treble-act with his friends George Barker (playing the gruff-but-wise old sage) and Andy Miller (supplying the cutting sarcasm). Bernard's role was that of Mr. Innocent, who always seemed to end up running Chris Llewellyn's IT pilot projects, and always turned them into a complete shambles without actually doing anything wrong.
        His finest 'campaign' was the peer-to-peer networking pilot, which began in 1994 and, as far as I know, was still running when he left. This drove poor Chris mad (not that he didn't deserve it!), and gave the 'All Stars' (Bernard's unofficial line management brotherhood) some of their most enjoyable sessions. However something that probably neither Chris nor the All Stars knew was that Roger Brison, and Tim Costello after him, were quite happy to let Bernard act as a natural damper on Chris's ambitions, which was the real reason why Planning so often ended up as the I.T. testbed. Chris is quite emotionally fragile these days, and if he ever found out it might well drive him over the brink, so it's probably best if he doesn't know.
        As for Bernard - I expected him to feel the loss quite badly when he left the office and his friends for the relative backwater of the Garden Centre. However it looks as if I was wrong. I visited him there recently, and he seemed totally content. I'm glad. Horticultural retailing's gain is very much JA Brown's loss, and I wish him every happiness in the future.

Amrat Advani, Group IT Systems Manager, Broadleys Group PLC.

I wouldn't be here (at HQ, that is) if it wasn't for Bernard. Partly that's because of his anti-Upgrade 2000 campaign which, despite going seriously pear-shaped, still managed (in typical Bernard fashion) to work out OK in the end and land me a plum job at Group. Mainly though it's because Bernard taught me everything I know about surviving in the office jungle - and believe me, I learnt from the master.
        I joined JA Brown as a junior planning exec on Bernard's team. My real ambition, however, was to work in I.T., and I'm afraid I took more interest in what the I.T. staff were up to than in what Bernard was telling me about preparing documentation for Tolworth A. I jumped at the first chance to transfer over to I.T., which I know annoyed Bernard after all the effort he'd put into training me. With hindsight, I reckon he thought working for Llewellyn was a suitable punishment for my desertion, and it certainly felt that way! But I also remember how sincerely he wished me good luck when I left, which made me realise that he really was one of the good guys.
        I have to admit that I tried it on a few times with Bernard when I was first in I.T. By then, Planning had become the firm's unofficial I.T. testbed, and knowing the department well, I thought I was ideally placed to get a few Special Projects off the ground there. Unfortunately Bernard was one step ahead of me and appointed Cathy Reeve, a stony-faced graduate trainee, as my successor. She just loved putting a stop to everything I tried, and she knew enough about I.T. to suss out what I was up to most of the time. One up to Bernard again.
        The only time I got one past Cathy was my combined Planning/Contracts server, which was frankly a masterpiece but almost got me the sack. It turned into the greatest-ever wind-up perpetrated on the firm's two greatest wind-up merchants, Bernard and Andy Miller - they spent a fortnight thinking their departments were about to be merged, and one of them made redundant! OK, in retrospect it wasn't that funny, but I didn't actually mean for them to think that. I just wanted to prove it could be done, and save some budget to put towards a decent dev server for the I.T. office. We visionaries are always misunderstood.
        Bernard and I soon patched up our differences though, and after that he saved my bacon more than once. Llewellyn really had it in for me and was just looking for a excuse to sack me, for what reason I could never understand. OK, there was the business with Solvents Stores and the Christmas Intraweb competition, and the LInux server fiasco, and Danny's Larging Lifestyle portal, but there really wasn't any need for him to bear grudges like he did. But Bernard kept tipping me off and giving me alibis, and I managed to pull through.
        Then of course along came Upgrade 2000. I still don't quite know what happened there - it seems that Llewellyn was planning to catch me red-handed spiking the installation process, but then someone told Group I.T. that he was the saboteur instead, and in the end he stayed on by the skin of his teeth, and I got promoted over his head. The thing was that I didn't actually sabotage the installations (I got Matt's warning in time) but they still crashed, taking Ms Stony-Face's Purchasing workstations out for a week, and her servers as well by the time the B2s had finished with them. Everyone thinks I was behind all that, but in fact I wasn't. I'm pretty certain it was Bernard, but he's never admitted it. Typical of him, that - the silent hard man to the end.
       I wasn't really involved with the Barrett business, but I knew there were some terrible things going on at JAB. When Barrett made Sheila redundant I thought Bernard was going to swing for him - I've never seen him so angry. But I saw Bernard and George Barker plotting in Peg's that night, and I remember thinking "If those two are on the case it's going to be OK." And sure enough, it was.
       Know what I think? I think Bernard did fix Purchasing's Upgrade 2000 installation, and that he knew Llewellyn would get him for it in the end. That's why he was able to stand up in that Management Meeting and fix Barrett too - he was already doomed, so he had nothing to lose. He sacrificed himself twice for us in as many months, and saved JAB in the process - what a hero! Bernard, you are one seriously hard man, a seriously great friend, and a role model to all of us who've come up through the ranks behind you.

Matt Smedley, Planning Manager, JA Brown

Everyone said I was mad to leave HQ for a job in the divisions, but a spell in the field is essential nowadays if you want to get on at Group, and I thought I'd get mine in early. I'd also heard about Bernard Pierce, the crazy line manager at JAB who let his clerks walk all over him, refused to sack his basket-case junior exec, and spent his lunchtimes acting out spoof-Masonic rituals involving free teas - yet still achieved the best results of any department in the company. No-one knew how he did it, but I wanted to find out, and when the chance to join his team came up, I jumped at it.
       I quickly discovered that Bernard's Planning department was, in effect, a family business, which he ran with the help of three grown-up daughters, a slightly wayward son and a succession of nephews and nieces in the Planning Exec role. Like most families, they squabbled a lot and had their own ways of communicating. Like the best families, they had tremendous loyalty and really knew how to pull together. That was Bernard's secret.
        I had a lucky start in the Pierce family business, thanks to (of all people) Cathy Reeve. She'd just been made up to Purchasing Manager, and was determined to show what a hard case she was. She started laying into me about late documentation as if I was something she'd found on her shoe, so I told her to take a hike, threatened to make a complaint about her attitude, and went on go-slow. The others loved every minute of it, not least Bernard, whom she'd double-crossed over a Linux server pilot as a thank-you gesture for helping to get her promoted. In the end she backed down, and I was the local hero.
        After that it would have been easy for me to settle into comfortable family life, and to some extent I did - after all, there are worse things than sharing an office with three good-looking women who bring you coffees all day! But it was never a long-term prospect, and if things hadn't worked out how they did, I'd have made sure to move on within a couple of years. Nice as it was, Bernard's department was a museum piece, a relic of an era when people took on jobs for life. These days they come and go, and like it or not the atmosphere needs to be more impersonal, and teams better at adapting to changes in personnel.
        I think Bernard realised that, and decided to move on before he was forced to become more impersonal himself. Now he's got a real family business to run, and from what I hear he's making a roaring success of it. I'll be doing things differently as Planning Manager (I've already started bringing in the changes), but there's plenty of things I'll be doing just the way Bernard did, because in many respects he was the best. I learnt a lot from him in a very short time, and I'll always be grateful.

Bill and Bob, Directors, B2 Systems Ltd (Hardware, software, systems, apps - you name it, we can sort it).

Bernard Pierce, eh? Ha ha ha! Yep, Bernard was a character all right - spent his days being pushed around by those two slappers June and Rose (Sheila though, now she was something else!), then into Peg's with the other middle-management deadbeats for a skinfull on the way home. The perfect executive lifestyle, or what? He could come across as a bit of a stiff sometimes, with his classical music and old black-and-white films, but once he'd had a few he was the life and soul of the party. And he got the better of that arsehole Llewellyn more than once, which made him OK by us and no questions asked.
        Llewellyn was a different matter though. We were both at JAB before him, when the "Information Technology Department" was known as Data Processing. Llewellyn wanted to be the new broom, so he started throwing out the minis and replacing them with PCs and Novell servers. We handled them no problem (NetWare scripts are kids stuff when you've worked on OS 360 JCL!), but he wanted younger programmers in suits who wouldn't realise what a prat he was, so the first chance he got (Costello's IT cutbacks) he gave us our cards. Mind you, we screwed a good deal out of him in return for going quietly and not giving Costello chapter and verse on what a complete pig's ear he was making of everything, so we couldn't complain.
        After that we did quite a lot of jobs for JAB, all of them at three times what we'd have earned in wages, so we couldn't complain about that either. Things went downhill after Broadleys took them over though, and eventually turned a bit nasty (we ended up suing them at one point). These days we tend to concentrate on work for smaller firms who don't have Group IT departments poking their noses in every five minutes to pick holes in what we've done. It's much better that way.
        The biggest laugh was when Llewellyn was sacked for being surplus to requirements, just like he'd sacked us - no one at JAB had a good word to say for that Barrett bloke, but we'd have bought him a pint, no question. Then Bernard stands up, makes a big speech, and gets Llewellyn reinstated! Shame you had to blot your copybook at the last minute like that, Bernard, but we'll forgive you - just this once!

George Barker, Director, Barker and Pierce's Plants and Conifers, formerly Purchasing Manager, JAB.

I joined JA Brown as a 15-year-old apprentice, and I can remember the firm's founder, John Andrew Brown himself, striding around the yard putting the fear of God into everyone. Bernard, on the other hand, was an office man from the start, joining as the equivalent of a Junior Exec. In those days people with no hands-on experience were thought of as pen-pushers, but Bernard quickly established himself as a good chap who was willing to learn, shouldered responsibility well and generally got the job done quietly and efficiently. He eventually became the firm's youngest ever departmental manager, and we all thought he deserved it.
       When Bernard was first promoted I took him under my wing, as was the practice at JAB. He gladly acknowledged his need for help and advice, something today's youngsters seem to have difficulty doing (that was young Cathy Reeve's problem, if you ask me). Bernard was a natural though, and seemed to have an instinctive grasp of what a good manager should do in each different situation. We became firm friends, and some of my best memories of JAB are of Bernard and I standing our ground in the face of a new cost audit onslaught from Brison, or another empire-building scheme from that prize idiot Chris Llewellyn.
        I know that Joan, my Senior Clerk, thought Bernard was a bit slipshod in the way he let Rose and June swear like troopers all day, but that was the point about him - he could distinguish between the fact that they were young girls who didn't accept the older generation's standards of decorum, and the fact that they were first-class workers he could always rely on. I also think that he was right to keep trying with Danny Moss - I wouldn't have had the patience, but Bernard recognised that he was an able lad, and just needed to grow up (rather like the young Andy Miller in fact). It took quite a bit longer than Bernard had anticipated, but he got there in the end.
        I think Bernard thought my offer of a partnership in the Garden Centre business was an act of charity, but nothing could be further from the truth. I'd have liked him to have joined me from the beginning, but it never occurred to me that he'd want to leave JAB, especially once he'd become All Stars FoC. But I saw that the Barrett business had really got under his skin, and that it wasn't just Barrett himself, but the prospect of more Barretts to come, that was really demoralising him. When I realised that he was seriously thinking of quitting I seized the moment, and I'm extremely glad I did. It can get lonely running a business by yourself, and a partner in whom you have absolute trust and confidence is a truly priceless asset. I foresee great things for us in the years to come.
        As for JAB - the truth is that it's just a set of assets on Broadleys' balance sheet now. Some of the remaining old guard, who knew it as a company in its own right, don't realise that, but I think Bernard did. That's why he's upstairs in the office planning the introduction of our new conifer range now. I, for one, can't think of a better place for him to be

J. Daniel Slimshady Moss III, Style Guru and Junior Planning Executive, JAB.

I admit it, work isn't a top priority for me. You only get one life, and I'm more interested in living mine than in climbing up the greasy pole to the dizzy heights of Management One. Bernard recognised that, and didn't mark me down for it. I was grateful to him for that, although it must be said that I abused his trust on a more or less continuous basis by not knuckling down properly to the job I already had. He didn't seem to mind too much, but I know it was wrong. Sorry, Bernard!
      The thing about working for an organisation like JAB is that you've got to know the angles and play them, otherwise it's a waste. When Llewellyn threw the green-screens out and put the PCs in, it was obvious that there was a lot more scope for private enterprise with the software, so I went to it. Amrat was up for it too at first, but then he got his job in IT and went all Captain Sensible on me. With Cathy there was never any chance (of anything, I have to say), but Amrat relaxed a bit after he'd settled in at IT, and in the end helped me to launch my Larging Lifestyle Portal website, which at one point was getting 3,000 hits a day courtesy of JAB's leased-line Net connection (OOPS - I'm not supposed to say that, am I? Just keep it to yourself, OK?).
      Getting back to Bernard though, it was comical the way the Girls (old bags, more like!) used to boss him around. Mind you, things always seemed to turn out the way he'd wanted them in the first place, even when it looked as if he'd given in to them. Actually they're all right really - rather them than old fat-arse Joan Davis any day. I did get a bit narked when Rose stopped me from pulling her niece Julie, but then again I suppose Rose was a bit put out by me asking her how such a beautiful young girl could have such an pig-ugly aunt, so it was all square really.
        When I think about it, Bernard did help me a hell of a lot. I could easily have got the chop over the Portal business, but he stood up to Llewellyn for me. Then there was my little audio CD duplicating scam - although I was pretty smart there, making sure he knew just how many of the Great and Good were on my customer list. But then again there were the Adult AVIs I was duping with Bob - he could have given me the bullet there and then for that, but he didn't. Of course I did fix him up with Cinemania networked from my CD-ROM drive to his office, so it wasn't all one way. Overall though I definitely owe him a few. Thanks, Bernard.
        With Bernard gone, Matt's in charge. I like that guy's style - he's genuinely cool and knows exactly where he's at. In fact if he's an example of today's young executive, then I might even be interested in becoming one myself. He's not as easy-going as Bernard was though, so I'm going to have to get the old nose to the grindstone, as my dad used to say. Funny thing is, as I get older, it doesn't seem such a problem. Strewth - am I getting middle-aged?