It was a cold Thursday morning in the Server Room. Sidney was having an even more confusing day than usual, but then he never had got the hang of Thursdays. It had started badly when his assistant, Colin Cousins, had come back off holiday and requested his desk back. Then Sidney had to hear all about Colin’s wife Carol’s hysterectomy and as always how wonderful Carol’s company was. Colin always mentioned that ‘Carol’s Company’ gave all their Sales staff Blackberries as well as a free chocolate vending machine at their Head Office. Sidney had told Colin that morning that they needed to seriously think about ways of managing information better at Pottersgate Paints, but all Colin talked about was something called ‘Sharepoint’ that they used at Carol’s office. Apparently Carol used it to book medical leave for the operation that now meant Colin would have to be doing the hovering for the next month. Oh and the private hospital that Carol’s company paid for also used this ‘Sharepoint’. At least there would be no more little Colins as Sidney was still not sure if there were four or five at the last count.
The lack of room in the IT Office together with the need to get away from the cocky Peter Pottersgate was the reason that Sidney was now shivering in the noisy Server Room. He had switched the air conditioning off for ten minutes last Wednesday, but that resulted in the temperature alarm going off on three of the Dell servers giving off a piercing noise that had led a passing Betty Broadhouse to thump the break-glass and set off the Site Fire Alarm. At least the Fire Brigade arrived in under ten minutes so it was a good practice. So Sidney sat there in his coat reading his emails from one of the old PCs that was out of warranty. Despite this depressing scene Sidney was smiling as he had received an email from Hannah Harper who was actually being friendly and there were even several kisses at the bottom. Sidney decided it was time for action and sent an email back to Hannah Harper with the Subject ‘I Want To Meet You’. This was Sidney being assertive and trying to come over all masterful. He said how much he liked their flirty emails but thought it was time to meet up and put the flirting into action. He told Hannah in no uncertain terms that he would be at the Albert Anchor pub tomorrow, Friday lunch-time, at half past twelve and wanted Hannah to meet him there. He read it through and felt it was a touch too forceful so added a few softer words. The title became ‘I Don’t Know If You Want To But I Would Really Like To Meet You If You Fancy And You Are Not Too Busy’. He ended the message with four kisses then after checking three times that he was sending it to the right address he pressed SEND. Within seconds a reply zapped back. The subject read ‘Out of Office’ and the text ‘I am currently out of the office until Monday but your email has been forwarded to my Manager Harry Hawkins and his Manager Harriet Holmes’.
Just then there was a very loud bang on the Server Room door. To Sidney’s horror it was the MD Percy Pottersgate. Sidney quickly opened the door pretending to be pleased to see Percy Pottersgate.
“So this is where you are hiding whilst Peter runs the show. He’s a bright boy, but make sure he rests that left foot”, Percy Pottersgate was shouting like a sergeant major to be heard above the humming servers. “Anyway haven’t got time for idle chat. Just here to tell you that I want you at the next Pottersgate Paint Senior Management Team meeting. About time we got you IT lot onboard ”. Sidney was delighted at the chance to finally join the SMT. “Oh, next one is at 11am today. Oh and as Gwen is off on holiday you can take the minutes” with that Percy Pottersgate left the Server Room. Sidney was still pleased that finally he would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ken Klondike, William Wilson, Roberto Raul and Harriet Holmes. Oh no, Harriet Holmes, Hannah’s boss, the email!
Sidney was first to arrive in the Board Room and although he had in the past spent hours trying to fix the Video Conferencing he had never before felt he belonged there until now. Sidney had noticed before that people always tend to arrive two minutes after the time of the meeting was due to start and all pretended to have rushed away from the very important work they were doing to be there. At two minutes past eleven they all started to pile in followed by Percy Pottersgate and his big white moustache.
“Have you all met Sidney whathisname? He is joining us from IT”, Pottersgate informed the room who all seemed to fail to recognise Sid even though he knew them all. “Pour the coffee then Sidney and then pass around these agendas”, the MD barked out.
Sidney hated these large coffee jugs with their strange opening mechanisms and was mighty relieved when Ken Klondike came to his rescue.
“Thanks for fixing that email problem for me, but what happened to the message I was sent last Tuesday from Morgan Meldrew?” Ken Klondike asked Sidney as he showed him that he had been pressing the wrong button on the coffee jug.
Eventually Sidney sat on the only seat that was left around the large oak table. When he sat down he realised that he was a good six inches lower than anybody else and worse still when he looked up was sitting right opposite Harriet Holmes. To make matters worse his chair was not only the lowest but had a very unfortunate squeak ever time he moved. Sidney read through the agenda and found a rather worrying pattern. Item 2 – Failings of IT, item 3 – Any IT Problems, item 4 – IT Overspend, item 5 – Poor IT Training and item 6 –Inappropriate use of internal email. Sidney was now feeling very uncomfortable and not only because he was sitting on his pager.
The meeting started and at least the first item was not about IT. It was about a possible company name change supposedly to give Pottersgate Paints a more global feel. Names were suggested including one from Percy Pottersgate himself. He suggested ‘Percy Pottersgate Paints’ which many said was an excellent choice. In the end it was agreed on ‘Pottersgate Paints International’ to show that they now had a customer in Ireland. So a new logo, corporate branding and signage was needed. Sidney realised that this was going to mean work for him. Lucy Longford then commented the need to thoroughly check the proofs for the signs to prevent another problem like the missing ‘i’ in ‘Pottersgate Paints’ last time.
For the next hour Sidney found why he was really there as everybody at the table aired their IT frustrations. There were many ranging from lack of toner in printer to the fact there were two Jack Jones listed in Outlook. Sidney defended his department all the way. The end result was that a completely new system was required for not a lot of money. Sidney was feeling overloaded and wasn’t really concentrating when Eric Emerson started talking about how they used something free called WSS to store all their marketing information at Tonks Tints. Percy Pottersgate liked the word ‘free’ and told Sidney to check out this WSS. In middle of item three the MD suddenly announced it was time for lunch and that they should all go down the Albert Anchor for a Ploughman’s. He didn’t make it clear who was paying and as Sidney only had two pound coins on him he decided it was best he should decline.
“No problems I am sure you have lots of IT work to be doing. Send young Peter along instead and tell him it’s on his Uncle”, Percy Pottersgate responded to Sidney’s polite refusal.
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