Sidney tried to reassure Colin that Colin’s job wasn’t one that was being considered for redundancy. Apparently at Colin’s wife’s company when they had difficulties they reduced the IT Department by two. Mind you the IT Department there did have nine people in. It seemed Peter Pottersgate hasn’t helped by winding Colin up by saying that he had seen somebody called Colin on his uncle’s hit-list. Sidney had been hopeful that one of cuts being consider would be cancelling Peter Pottersgate’s contract because he really was irritating Sidney. It was made worse when Peter Pottersgate set Colin’s emails to all automatically forward Colin Conway’s inbox in Maintenance. It was only when s Colin casually mentioned that he hadn’t received any emails since Thursday that Sidney realised why Colin Conway had been trying to assist Sandra Shipton with a complex Excel spreadsheet and was moaning about his increased work load.
Gwen Gardner had been in her element trying to control cuts and save Pottersgate Paints money. These had included rationing toilet rolls per department to two a week, no lights to be turned on before 4pm and the dishwasher to only be used on a Thursday. She had also instructed Sidney to turn all his servers off at night, but Peter Pottersgate had convinced his uncle Percy that this would not be the best of ideas. It was now Sidney’s job to tell Gwen. Sidney also had to think of a way of replacing the expensive ERP system with something that would be more cost effective.
In Sidney’s emails was one from Hannah Harper and she wasn’t her usual cheerful self. She was worried about talk of the restructuring in Finance and Purchasing. As she was the most recent starter in Accounts she was very worried her job might be in danger. Sidney tried to write back to reassure her but he knew there would be redundancies. Maybe he should try and get Hannah’s home address just in case she does leave Pottersgate Paints quickly. Just as Sidney was thinking what to put in his reply his phone rang. It was the MD, Percy Pottersgate, and he wanted Sidney in his office now. Sidney was worried at being summoned. Was it going to be bad news?
Sidney went quickly to Percy Pottersgate’s office, but his route was blocked by Gwen Gardner. She seemed very perturbed that she had not been informed of this meeting and insisted on checking with Mr. Pottersgate first before allowing him past her.
“What kept you?”, Percy Pottersgate seemed very anxious to talk to Sidney. Sidney was worried what news Percy Pottersgate was going to have for him in these worrying financial times. Pottersgate gestured towards a large cardboard box against the wall.
“Well, come on get it on the wall. The Dutch are on in half an hour”, Percy Pottersgate pointed at the wall.
It seemed that a new 42” video display unit with HDTV input had been purchased for Percy Pottersgate’s office just ready for the World Cup. Maybe money wasn’t as tight as Sidney thought at Pottersgate Paints. Percy Pottersgate indicated that the monitor would be a useful business tool and maybe after he had tested it for a month it could then be moved to the Boardroom. He did ask Sidney to dispose of the packaging discretely though.
Back in the IT Office Sidney decided that it was about time he sorted out the post as it was obvious that neither Colin nor Peter Pottersgate were going to do it. The post was full of free computer magazines that Sidney had once requested. In fact it seemed from the large pile that some of them he had requested more than once. Within minutes all bins in the IT Department were full so Sidney was forced to find room in his desk drawers for the rest of the junk mail. But one postcard caught his attention. It was partly because it was about SharePoint, but probably more appealing was that it was a presentation at Edgbaston Cricket Ground and most appealing were the two words on the front ‘admission fee’. It was from a Birmingham based SharePoint Consultancy company called ‘Action SharePoint’ who were offering to tell him all about the new ‘SharePoint 2010’, give him a tour of the home of Warwickshire Cricket club and a free croissant. Sidney was keen to find out more about this SharePoint that everybody had been going on about and also just wanted to escape the Pottersgate Paints madhouse for half a day so quickly he signed up online.
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