Back in the Pottersgate IT Department Office the mood was gloomy. Peter Pottersgate was trying to shred his World Cup Wallchart and Colin was trying to make his CV sound vaguely interesting in case his job was in doubt. Sidney was just emailing Hannah Harper to ask how her weekend camping trip had been with her Aunt Ada and cousin Jessica. Sidney had caught a glimpse of Hannah that morning and she was wearing a very pretty black and white outfit. He had waved at Hannah, but she had not seen him as she had been distracted by Peter Pottersgate on his skateboard. Sidney thought that maybe he could bump into her later in the canteen. Sidney’s romantic emailing though was interrupted by the loud entrance of MD Percy Pottersgate.
“Ah Sidney, how was your weekend? Good, how’s my favourite nephew doing?” Percy Pottersgate said without pausing.
Sidney decided that he was rather tired of young Peter Pottersgate’s flirty antics with the lovely Miss Harper and told Percy Pottersgate how Peter had been breaking site rules by riding a skateboard. Percy Pottersgate was furious and Sidney could see the blood rising to his face. This was it Peter Pottersgate was finally in big trouble.
“What! You let Peter on a skateboard on site? Are you mad?” Percy was so cross and for some reason the anger was being aimed at Sidney. “Don’t you know how important that left foot is? It is the Birmingham Paint Manufacturers five-a-side tournament in two weeks and I want to win it. I am fed up of listening to Gavin Galloway of Galloway Gloss gloating about winning every year. Peter is our best hope. He had trials with Accrington Stanley you know”.
So now Sidney knew exactly why he had been lumbered with Peter Pottersgate this last month. It was all to give Pottersgate Paints a chance of five-a-side glory.
“Have the blokes from Action SharePoint arrived yet then?” Percy abruptly changed the subject. Sidney was forced to say no, mainly because the meeting wasn’t scheduled until 2pm that afternoon and it was only ten to ten now. Percy Pottersgate then informed Sidney that he had moved the meeting forward three hours as he was having the first five-a-side training session this afternoon. Sidney now was starting to panic as he had hoped to let the Action SharePoint people do most of the talking.
“Let’s start at 11 then”, Percy shouted as he left the IT Office.
Sidney was now very worried and desperately trying to gain some useful information from the Action SharePoint website http://www.actionsharepoint.com . The site was full of great SharePoint information, but Sidney was having trouble taking it all in. Just then the phone rang. It was yet another IT market survey asking him lots of questions about his IT structure. Sidney tried to explain that he was short of time but the lady on the other end seemed to have difficulty understanding Sidney and just wanted him to rate different computer manufacturers. In the end Sidney just answered a rating of seven for everyone. He hasn’t even heard of some of the manufacturers but just wanted to finish the call. Sidney put the phone down and instantly it rang again. Sidney was ready for another survey or a recruitment agency, but instead it was the consultant from Action SharePoint. The caller was just checking that Pottersgate Paints had a digital projector for this afternoon. When Sidney told them about the change of time he couldn’t believe his luck when the person on the other end of the phone said that they could change their plans and as they were in the Birmingham area they could be there in an hour.
The Action SharePoint presentation to the board was very well received by all around the table except old Bill Bell was not impressed. He didn’t like these modern computers and felt that the IT Department in general was a waste of money. Bill Bell could not see why in a time when Pottersgate Paints were struggling that they should spend any money. The Action SharePoint consultants showed that by automating many of the paper systems Pottersgate Paints could save considerable time and money. Bill Bell was also worried about security and said he trusted the lock on his filing cabinet more than any computer system. Percy Pottersgate seemed quite keen on SharePoint and was impressed that the Action SharePoint presentation included the Pottersgate Paints logo on each of the sites and even a photograph of him taken from the website looking mighty fine. The way the Pottersgate Paints supplier spreadsheet was impressively converted into a SharePoint list in just seconds Sidney thought was pretty neat. Bill Bell just said “what about people without computers?”
Sidney felt the meeting went well and was really pleased with himself for inviting the Action SharePoint guys even if the one did beat him to the last chocolate digestive. Percy Pottersgate had asked Sidney to put together a detailed project proposal for tomorrow morning including a breakdown of all cost savings over the next three years. Sidney had missed his lunch in the canteen with Hannah Harper and now he was going to have a long night writing this Project Proposal. A good starting point though was the free ’12 Step SharePoint Project Checklist’ he had been given by the Action SharePoint consultants.
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