Sidney had spent three hours now trying to get his IT Training Requirements Form to look right in Word. It was nearly there but the formatting kept doing its own thing and the boxes just didn’t quite line up. It had been the opinion of the new Training Co-ordinator, Terence Turpin, that employees were lacking in vital computer training and that IT should send out a survey to find out what people needed training on. Sidney had thought at the time that maybe this should be the job of the newly appointed Training Co-ordinator, but Percy Pottersgate had quickly volunteered Sidney. As Sidney was thinking how he was supposed to find time to run any courses an email arrived from the lovely Hannah Harper. She was in a very chatty mood and had apparently had a very good weekend even though she had unfortunately had to take her hamster ‘Hanley’ to the vets as he had a nasty lump on his bottom. Hannah was saying that she really wanted to meet Sidney and mentioned that on a Monday she often went in the canteen on her own at about ten to one. This was good news to Sidney, even though he had picked up a rather nice cheese and chutney triple sandwich pack at the garage on his way to work that Monday morning. He decided that today he would go in the Canteen for his lunch and offered Colin his triple pack. Colin then told him how at his wife’s company they have a choice of over twenty different sandwiches whenever they were having working lunch meetings. Oh, and that all the minutes of the meeting were published and available on SharePoint the same day.
Over the weekend Sidney had gained ten new Facebook friends and sent out a few twitters. He had now discovered that SharePoint, WSS and MOSS were actually all just different forms of SharePoint. One expert had tried to explain the difference to him but Sidney didn’t quite get it. The main one seemed to hinge around the fact that one was free and the other had a very complex licensing structure. But everyone seemed to say good things about this SharePoint. One of his new virtual friends had though sent him a nine page long message on why Open Source was far superior to anything that Microsoft ever did.
When Sidney returned to the IT Office he was horrified to find Colin and Peter Pottersgate almost coming to blows. The reason appeared to be mainly because Peter had changed Colin’s automated 3D screen saver to display ‘Colin is the most boring man in Britain’ then set it to start every minute and then disabled Colin’s access to change it. Colin was generally a patient chap but Peter Pottersgate was certainly winding him up. Sidney considered disciplining Peter but realised his uncle would be against this. Percy Pottersgate’s nephew seemed very precious to him and especially for some reason his left foot. Sidney decided instead to leave them to it and make his way to the Canteen ready to meet Hannah Harper from Accounts.
Sidney only usually made one annual visit to the Pottersgate Paints’ Canteen because the quality of food was not of the highest standard since they contracted it out in 2004 to ‘Cathy’s Cheap Caterers’ . Yet every year in the third week of December, Sidney always attended the Staff Christmas Lunch. It wasn’t that the food was any better; it just reminded Sidney of why he didn’t go any other time of the year. The highlight of the Staff Christmas Lunch was always that members of the Administration Department acted as waiters and waitresses. Even scary Gwen Gardner dressed up and often ended up with her white gloves covered in tomato soup. Better though than the shaky serving abilities of old Alice Appleby who had a habit of getting the soup everywhere but in the bowl. Being a punctual chap, Sidney was at the Canteen waiting for Miss Harper with plenty of time to spare. He had to pretend to tie his shoelace as people kept inviting him to join the queue. Then just as the second hand on the clock behind the counter reached the ten; a familiar short dark haired lady arrived and then walked straight past poor Sidney. He followed her smiling inanely like an extra from Mr Bean. Eventually Hannah Harper realised who he was and greeted him with a semi hug.
Back in the Server Room Sidney reflected on a rather enjoyable seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds spent nearly alone with Hannah Harper. It was a pity that Ronald Roughwood, Safety Manager, had come and sat on their table then moaned non-stop about how rubbish people are at completing Near Miss Forms. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t had his HSE tie resting in his gravy. At least Hannah smiled sweetly at Sidney. She also had an interesting comment about how at the last company she worked for all their Safety Reports were completed via the Intranet and that they used something called SharePoint. This had prompted Sidney to investigate more about this SharePoint. He could start a SharePoint Project Team and get Hannah Harper onboard. He could use it as an excuse to meet her lots more times to discuss SharePoint. Maybe they could meet in the Canteen again or here in the Server Room or maybe even at Sidney’s house. At that moment an email arrived from Hannah and it was one of the best emails Sidney had ever received; it was entitled “Thank You” and simply read “Thank you for keeping me company at lunch time, Hannah xx, P.S. Next time we will hide from ‘The Gravy Man’.”
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