Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 17)

It was a very cold day at Pottersgate Paints as Percy Pottersgate refused to turn the heating on until 1st November. Sidney actually thought it felt warmer in the Server Room sitting under the cold air conditioner blower than it did in his office. Sidney was just in the middle of creating a survey on SharePoint to get feedback on how the Pilot had gone when an email from Hannah Harper arrived in his Inbox.

As had been a common theme in recent emails, from Hannah Harper, there were lots of mentions of Louis Le Gover (the new European Sales Manager) and how wonderful he was. Sidney knew that Monsieur Le Gover had taken out his beloved Hannah three times and he did not want to hear another word about what a gentleman he was. Sidney even did a ‘Replace All’ on the message so instead of saying ‘Louis’ it said ‘clown’, well that was the polite version. Sidney was very smitten with Hannah Harper and they had shared a sort of kiss on their last date so he knew he needed to do something pretty special to win her heart.

Another email arrived in Sidney’s Inbox and he hissed inwardly as he noticed it was from his love-rival Louis Le Gover. Sidney considered challenging Le Gover to a dual. Louis could have a small sword and Sidney would have an armoured tank. The email stated that again the European Sales Manager was unable to access the IT Helpdesk Form on SharePoint. Sidney was about to send a sarcastic email back saying that the IT Department only accepted IT Helpdesk requests that were submitted from the SharePoint system but instead decided to ring Le Gover. Sidney had been thinking that maybe he should get to know Louis better and then he could tell the French clown that he and the pretty Hannah Harper were an item. As long, of course, that Hannah Harper never found out. So Sidney re-activated Louis Le Gover’s domain account which he had ‘accidentally’ disabled that morning and rang Le Gover’s extension number.

Louis Le Gover answered the phone in an annoying fake Salesman kind of voice and pretended to be delighted that Sidney had called. Although it soon became apparent he didn’t actually know who Sidney was. Sidney managed to mention that he was a very ‘very’ close friend of Hannah Harper from Accounts. This didn’t quite have the desired result as it gave the opportunity of letting Le Gover describe in detail how attractive he found Miss Harper and how well they were getting on. Sidney’s mood was not helped when Louis said that he had two tickets for the ballet at Birmingham on Saturday and was going to ask Hannah if she would accompany him.

After the phone call Sidney knew he had to have a plan to stop Hannah going to the ballet with Le Gover. He needed to offer her an alternative date first, but what would rival the ballet?

Seconds after Sidney put the phone down it rang and the timing of the call from the SharePoint Consultant at Action SharePoint could not have been better. Sidney had been impressed with the frequent calls from Action SharePoint to check if he had any issues with the Pottersgate Paints SharePoint Project. They really seemed to be going beyond the call of duty to make sure the Pottersgate Paint's SharePoint was a success. But the timing of this call was perfect as they told Sidney about an event that was happening in Birmingham all day on Saturday. It was the first SharePoint Saturday in the UK and was open to anyone. Sidney’s mind was working overtime. Firstly, he wanted to find out even more about SharePoint and secondly he could invite Hannah Harper to escort him and get in ahead of Le Gover’s ballet invite.

Things couldn’t have gone better for Sidney and on Saturday morning he was driving Hannah Harper to the Metropolitan Hotel, next to the NEC, for the first ever SharePoint Saturday in the UK. Better still Pottersgate Paints were paying the mileage for his weekend date. Excitedly Sidney drove to the barrier of the Car Park to the hotel showing Hannah how well he knew the area. They parked up and walked side by side to the reception. Sidney showed his masterful side and asked the man at reception where the SharePoint Saturday event was. To Sidney’s annoyance not only did the receptionist insist there was no such SharePoint event there but also had a French accent. It was as Sidney was showing the man his ticket that he realised that they were actually in the Crown Plaza Hotel and not the Metropolitan. So after embarrassingly admitting his mistake and asking the French receptionist to validate his parking ticket the two returned to the car.
One round about further on Sidney and Hannah joined the rest of the people at SharePoint Saturday. Sidney was delighted to see many familiar faces there. It wasn’t that he had met them before but that he had seen their pictures as they were his Facebook friends. Straightaway he recognised Mark Miller, the founder and editor of SharePoint End User, from Australia. He was even wearing his trademark hat. The names of people presenting also were familiar to Sidney. Two of the Shop Owners from SharePoint Village were presenting Veronique Palmer and Sam Dolan. In fact it was difficult to decide which presentation to attend. Sidney being a gentleman let Hannah decide and she chose the one by Sam Dolan, from design company Pink Petrol, on changing themes in SharePoint 2010. Sidney was glad she hadn’t suggested attending different sessions and later admitted it was only because it involved the colour ‘pink’ that she chose Sam’s presentation. The two enjoyed a good day and Sidney wrote down a list of questions to ask the Action SharePoint chap on Monday. He added a note at the bottom of his list though to remind him to ask Louis Le Gover if he enjoyed the ballet.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 16)

“Thank God it is Friday”, thought Sidney as he was having such an unlucky day. It had started badly when his radio alarm failed to go off due to it being unplugged. Sidney’s Dad, Samuel, was staying with Sidney for a few days and was very safety conscious. Which is why during last night’s big thunder storm he had insisted on unplugging every electrical appliance in Sidney’s house. Sidney’s start to the day was not helped when he had to paddle through the kitchen as a result of the freezer defrosting. Sidney was very fond of his Dad, but was still counting down the days until he went home. Last night Sidney was struck by how much his Dad was starting to turn into Norman Clegg off ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ and how often he had asked if he had locked his front door.

As Sidney reached his car his heart sank to see his driver-side wing mirror hanging off having obviously been bashed by a passing car. His car was only in the drive because his Dad’s Volvo Estate was half sticking out of his garage. His Dad had told him that he had to put it in the garage even though it didn’t fit because it made his insurance premium twenty pounds cheaper. Sidney’s frustrations increased when he found a hand-written note stuck under his wiper.

The note read, “YOUR MIRROR HIT MY LAND ROVER THIS MORNING AND HAS PUT A LARGE SCRATCH DOWN THE SIDE OF IT. I WILL SEE YOU LATER TO COLLECT PAYMENT FOR DAMAGES. FROM HENRY HARDNUT”
At work things didn’t improve with Gwen Gardner waiting for Sidney at his desk ready to accuse him of stealing all her Board Meeting minutes from SharePoint. Sidney was flustered and just couldn’t see why the Web Part displaying all the Board Meeting Minutes that was there on Wednesday was now missing from the ‘Administration’ page. Sidney was left to promise he would find them or restore them from last night’s backup just to get rid of the MD’s Secretary, sorry PA. Although, he knew very well that the backup had failed the last two night’s because Colin Cousins had somehow managed to jam the DLT tape in the tape drive after inserting it the wrong way.

Sidney made himself a coffee in his ‘Action SharePoint’ mug and sat trying to think where the Board Meeting Minutes could be hiding. He started by checking the recycle bin on the SharePoint site but this just included some pretty odd old photographs of Gwen Gardner which Sidney thought best to ignore. Certainly there were no Board Meeting Minutes to be seen. Sidney was just about to ring Action SharePoint on 0121 3680055 when he suddenly had a thought. Then after he thought, “Had Dad unplugged the heater for the tropical fish tank?” he then thought about Site content in SharePoint. Yes, he thought, if it was still really there it would be listed under ‘View All Site Content’. Sidney checked, as he had Site Admin rights, and saw it listed as ‘Board Meeting Minutes’. Better still it said it contained 16 items and when he clicked on it he could see them all. So all he would have to do was recreate it as a web Part on the ‘Administration’ site. Sidney was about to start this when his mind went back to the ‘SharePoint Super User’ training session he did with Action SharePoint. The training course when he got to sit behind the delightful Hannah Harper and saw for the first time that cute little mole on the back of her neck. He recalled that the Action SharePoint Trainer had mentioned a few trouble-shooting tricks and that he had pointed out how to use SharePoint Designer to see missing Web Parts. Sidney was quite excited so quickly opened up his ‘free’ SharePoint Designer. Then he copied the URL address of the ‘Administration’ site and copied it into ‘Open Site’ box. Within seconds Sidney was punching the air with delight at the sight of the missing Web Part. Just a pity that poor Colin Cousins was walking by as Sidney punched the air. Sidney’s fist struck Colin right on the jaw. Luckily there was no real damage but Colin insisted on an entry being added to the ‘First Aid Book’ on SharePoint. He was quite proud of being the first entry in there.

Sidney quickly found the issue with the Board Meeting Minutes Web Part and fixed it. Somebody had clicked on the option to ‘Close’ the Web Part so he re-opened it. Sidney also disabled the ‘Close’ option so whoever did it could not do it again.

Just as Sidney was thinking about inviting Hannah Harper to join him and his Dad for dinner that evening; Percy Pottersgate walked in with somebody that Sidney did not recognise. The tall gentleman was slightly tanned and very well groomed. A James Bond type of character and Sidney noticed that he was considerably more handsome than the average Pottersgate Paint employee.
“Morning Sidney, just been telling our new European Sales Manager all about our brilliant SharePoint”, Percy Pottersgate shouted out. “Have you met Louis Le Gover? He speaks over ten different languages you know including Bulgarian”.

Sidney soon found his hand being firmly gripped as he was greeted by the French sounding chap. Louis Le Gover was all teeth and designer suits. Sidney was not warming to the new European Sales Manager and was glad when the two left to continue Louis’ tour of Pottersgate Paints.
There was just time to drop Hannah Harper an email to invite her for dinner before Sidney had to go and fix Daniel Daker’s dodgy disk drive. But before he could click on ‘New Message’ an email from his favourite lady arrived. The email from Hannah Harper was quite chatty and said that she was having her nails painted tomorrow afternoon and then going to the Church Harvest Festival on Sunday. It was the last part of the email though that disappointed Sidney most. It read, “I am taking the new European Sales Manager, Louis Le Gover out tonight to show him around Birmingham as he is over here from Paris. He seems really nice and charming”. Worse of all Hannah hadn’t put any kisses before her auto-signature.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 11)

Pottersgate Paints were two-nil up against Coventry Crowns thanks to two rather flashy goals from Peter Pottersgate. Sidney was having a very quiet time in goal wearing a goalkeeping top that was three sizes too big as it belonged to Gary Greedy. Sidney’s mind wasn’t totally on the game as he had somehow managed to arrange to take Hannah Harper to see Shrek Forever After in 3D on the same night as he was playing for Pottersgate Paints in the Midland Paints 5-a-side Cup. Sidney had tried several ways to get out of playing including claiming he had sprained his left ankle. The result was Ronald Roughwood, the Safety Manager, wrapping a very tight bandage around Sidney’s ankle. The bandage was so tight that Sidney’s whole leg was now a funny shade of blue. So it was now six o’clock and Hannah was still expecting him at Star City in ninety minutes. The one good thing was that Sidney had done a test run last night and found that he could drive from the Sports Centre to Star City in just seven and a half minutes.

Sidney was quite pleased how his week had gone and with the help of Action SharePoint had made a good start on the SharePoint project. They had even managed to allow Sidney to install a full copy of SharePoint Foundation 2010 on his Windows 7 Enterprise laptop so he could try some things out at home. He had also found the spreadsheet they gave him to let each department let him know which documents they currently had stored very useful. Of course, Gwen Gardner had insisted on her spreadsheet being three times longer than anybody else’s. Sidney had been surprised to find that across the company there were eight separate copies of the Quality Manuals all containing different versions. He was starting to see how much SharePoint was going to benefit Pottersgate Paints.

It was as Sidney was thinking about what Percy Pottersgate was going to think about the email he sent him this morning, with the suggestions for members of the SharePoint Project Team on, that a loud cheer echoed around the Sports Hall. Sidney looked up to see that Peter Pottersgate was celebrating in a rather laddish way after completing his hat-trick. Sidney had suggested himself as ‘Technical Lead’ and had even tried to recommend Hannah Harper as the representative for the Accounts Department. He had also suggested that Quinton Quigley, the Quality Manager, could be the SharePoint Project Manager even though he didn’t work Mondays. The Action SharePoint chaps had suggested the different Project Roles to Sidney and arranged a day of training for the project team a week on Thursday.

It was now nearly half past six and Sidney still hadn’t had a save to make. Pottersgate Paints had won their first three matches and were looking unbeatable. Percy Pottersgate was sitting in the balcony overlooking the pitch and looking very pleased. It looked like this was finally going to be Pottersgate Paints' year. Sidney was becoming more worried about missing his date and thinking perhaps he should have told Hannah Harper he might be late. This could be his one chance of a date with the lovely Hannah and he was stuck wearing a giant goalkeeper’s shirt. At least with the big shirt he had been able to put his favourite blue polo shirt underneath ready for his date. His tracksuit bottoms not only saved him from banging his legs but also hid his black bootleg jeans. He worked out he could be changed in under a minute if needed.

Next game was the quarter-final against the Tipton Topcoats and within minutes Peter Pottersgate was celebrating another goal. Sidney was thinking about sharing a bucket of popcorn with Hannah Harper when he noticed the Tipton Topcoat striker running towards him. Sidney dived to his left and the ball went to his right. An equaliser and Sidney started to think that if Pottersgate Paints get knocked out against Tipton Topcoats that he could yet make his date. Five minutes later and another shot from the Tipton Topcoats’ striker was heading straight at Sidney. Sidney jumped out of the way of the ball. Unfortunately for Sidney the ball struck his large bandaged foot and shot off to the halfway line. Where it was collected neatly by Peter Pottersgate before he twisted past three Tipton Topcoats players and scored the winning goal.

The Semi Final saw Pottersgate Paints take on their old rivals Galloway Gloss. Sidney knew that if they won and reached the final he would miss his date with Hannah Harper completely; at least if they lost he would only be a few minutes late. Percy Pottersgate called the team together before the game and told them in no uncertain terms that this was a game they had to win or they would all be looking for new jobs come Monday. It was a grudge match as Galloway Gloss had knocked Pottersgate Paints out the last two years. The game started well for Sidney as Galloway Gloss scored almost straight from kickoff and the ball was hit so hard that nobody could blame Sidney. Just after half time Pottersgate Paints equalised and for once the scorer wasn’t Peter Pottersgate but Satnam Singh from Sales. It was now a quarter past seven and the game looked set for extra time when Galloway Gloss had a break away. It was the number four of Galloway against Sidney. All Sidney had to do was let in this goal and he could soon be on a date with Hannah Harper. Sidney opened his legs wide to give the number four more of the goal to aim at and closed his eyes. Bang! The ball struck Sidney full on the face. Sidney was dazed and didn’t see what happened next. The ball travelled up in the air and came down right by Peter Pottersgate. Peter was trying a very ambitious overhead kick but appeared to forget which way he was facing and instead struck the ball straight into his own goal. Pottersgate Paints were beaten and Sidney was going to be able to go on his date. Just unfortunate that Sidney now had blood pouring from his nose and the imprint of a football on his left cheek.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 10)

Sidney couldn’t believe his luck. Hannah Harper was asking him out on a date. Well, it seemed liked that as she was saying that she wanted to see the new Shrek film, but hadn’t got anyone to go with. Sidney read the email six times to make sure he wasn’t reading too much into this. Animated cartoons might not be his kind of thing and he hadn’t been to the cinema for over a year, but this was Hannah Harper. The last time he went was when he was the only person in the cinema to see the film ‘The Dammed United’ the story of Brian Clough’s disastrous 44 days at Leeds. Sidney checked the times of the Shrek film at Star City in Birmingham and was really pleased to see that it was available in 3D at nine O ’ Clock this Friday. His only concern now was would he really look at his most appealing wearing those silly plastic 3D glasses. As it would be dark Sidney decided to go for it and emailed Hannah Harper back saying that if she was really really desperate to find somebody to go with then he could, if she wanted, take her on Friday night to see it in 3D. After pressing the send button Sidney sat back in his chair to wait for the response. Unfortunately as he lent back he knocked his souvenir IT Crowd mug, with its saying “Have you tried turning it off and on again”, off his desk. Maybe it was a sign of things to come that the mug hit the floor and broke into six pieces.

Peter Pottersgate was training again for the Pottersgate Paints five-a-side team with potential goalkeeper Gary Greedy, from the Gatehouse, in the staff car park. Colin Cousins had rung in sick making lots of coughing noises with a very husky voice. Sidney had pretended to believe Colin was sick even though he had heard him twice yesterday on the phone to his wife obviously preparing for an interview. So Sidney was left alone clearing up the remains of his ‘IT Crowd’ coffee mug. With the bin full of old unread copies of Computer Weekly Sidney opened one of the drawers in Colin’s desk and emptied in the broken parts of the mug. Maybe Colin could glue them back together when he returned? Just then an email arrived in Sidney’s Inbox. He checked hopefully to see if it was from Hannah Harper, but no it was from the MD, Percy Pottersgate. It was good news as Percy was giving the go ahead for Sidney to start a SharePoint Project.

Sidney was quite excited at the chance to really get involved with Microsoft SharePoint even if the lack of money Percy Pottersgate was budgeting for it would be a challenge. The idea was very much to try to considerably reduce the costs of the current Finance system and also to give the Sales Department less paperwork to do so they could have more time to sell. Another part of Percy Pottersgate’s email that was slightly concerning Sidney was that Percy wanted to Go Live with SharePoint to all the Pottersgate Paints sites on 1st September. This was going to be a challenge, but where should Sidney start? Maybe a good start would have been a nice cup of tea, but now with his favourite mug gone even that was difficult. Sidney could use one of Colin’s as Colin had left one unwashed for over six months that he was deliberately cultivating the green mould in. Then the postman arrived in the office with a delivery for Sidney to sign for. Sidney took delivery of a cubed shaped parcel while still trying to work out how exactly the postman had got past the Gatehouse and was walking around on site without a visitors badge. Surely Gary Greedy hadn’t left the Gatehouse unmanned?

Excitedly Sidney unwrapped the parcel and was delighted with what he found inside. There he found a gleaming white mug with the words ‘SharePoint Mug’ on the front and the SharePoint logo. He turned the mug over and found some more words ‘Don’t be a SharePoint Mug call Action SharePoint on 0121 3680055’. Sidney was so pleased not only could he have a cup of tea without having to scrape out Colin’s mug but he also knew exactly where to start his SharePoint Project. Those nice men at Action SharePoint would tell him what he needed to do.

The ping sound from his computer heralded another email and this one was going to bring an even bigger smile to Sidney’s face than his Action SharePoint mug had. It was from Hannah Harper from Accounts. She was saying how she would love to go with Sidney to see ‘Shrek Forever After’ at Star City on Friday. She would meet him there at half past seven and then they could have a bite to eat first. Sidney was really pleased and for once everything was working out so well. Perhaps this was going to be his lucky mug. Just then a loud scream came from outside the window from the staff car park. Sidney looked outside to see Gary Greedy lying on the floor obviously in great pain.

Within minutes Safety Manager Ronald Roughwood, with his custard stained tie, was treating poor Gary from the Gatehouse. The news was not good as Gary Greedy had obviously broken his left arm as he was trying to save a shot from Peter Pottersgate’s famous left foot. The angle his left arm was pointing was a bit of a giveaway.

A conversation with Action SharePoint went well and they confirmed that with the right Project Team in place it would be possible to deliver the project by 1st September and that if Pottersgate Paints used the free SharePoint version SharePoint Foundation 2010 then the budget figure was also realistic. The only issue was that to use SharePoint Foundation 2010 then they would need a 64-bit server. Their Senior SharePoint Consultant said that if the 64-bit server was a problem then they could start the project as Windows SharePoint Services (SharePoint 2007) and plan to upgrade later.

The next call Sidney received darkened his mood quite a bit. It was from a very stressful sounding Percy Pottersgate. He needed Sidney urgently. He needed Sidney to play in goal for the Pottersgate Paints five-a-side team in place of injured Gary Greedy. Sidney wasn’t keen as he knew how seriously Percy Pottersgate took the Midland Paints Cup. When Tommy Tomkinson, from Technical, missed that penalty last season Percy Pottersgate soon cancelled Tommy’s Twenty-Five Year Service Award. Things then got even worse for Sidney when he was informed that the tournament was on Friday night kicking off a 6pm. Sidney was about to give a reason why he couldn’t play but Percy Pottersgate just thanked Sidney for being a real Pottersgate Paints man and put the phone down.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 9)

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.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 8)

Sidney was sat in his car on the M6, for once not being frustrated that he hadn’t moved for ages despite the motorway sign in front of him saying “16 MINS TO J6” for the last hour. This time Sidney was feeling quite content after a very enjoyable morning at Edgbaston Cricket Club learning all about SharePoint. It had been so refreshing just being away from Pottersgate Paints and the tour of the ground had been very pleasant in the sunshine. The fact that the croissants even came with crispy bacon on them made everything so much better. Although, maybe having six croissants was a touch greedy on his part.

Sidney didn’t get out the office very much these days so he really had been looking forward to it. He had been the first to arrive at the SharePoint 2010 Event and had quickly filled his free carrier bag with lots of leaflets. Many of the leaflets were not even about SharePoint or part of the event. Maybe, as he had no children, taking a leaflet about joining the Junior Bears, Warwickshire Cricket Supporters Club, was slightly excessive. Sidney had put on his new white shirt that morning and it was a pity he had put so much ketchup on that third bacon croissant. At least his Pottersgate Paint tie covered some of the red stain. Clipping his name badge to his shirt pocket hid most of the rest. He had sat on the front row listening to the presentation by Action SharePoint and had been really impressed by some of the things they were demonstrating with SharePoint. It wasn’t the flashy videos they integrated into SharePoint or the way they created some pretty snazzy Management Reports, but the way they showed answers to so many problems Sidney had at Pottersgate Paints. The only one it didn’t seem to help with was how to successfully romance Hannah Harper from Accounts. The Action SharePoint chaps were great and spoke in normal non-techie language that even Sidney could understand. Yes, there was one guy who kept asking geeky questions but even then the Action SharePoint Consultant gave an answer that meant Sidney then understood what the question really was about. Many in the room had been IT Managers like Sidney and obviously faced the same challenges. They were all shown how SharePoint could manage their IT Helpdesks, how it could organise all the HR policies, how it could record safety near misses, how it could store training records and even how it could be used to setup a Car Sharing Scheme. Sidney had also been very impressed with how easily they created a satisfaction survey based on England’s World Cup performance to date. The IT Manager from Glasgow’s delight in England’s poor start at least made Sidney’s mind up that he wouldn’t be supporting Andy Murray at Wimbledon.

It had been Sidney’s intention to make notes during the presentation and he had even purchased a jotter notepad from the 24 hour Tesco on his way there. He had been too scared to ask if he could have a notepad from the Pottersgate Paints Stationary Cupboard. This was mainly because last week when he had asked for some staples Gwen Gardner had insisted on knowing what each staple would be used for. So he was ready with his Tesco notepad, but as he was already trying to balance his cup of tea and a plate with a bacon croissant on he decided that note taking was a little too challenging. SharePoint seemed very straightforward. It was very powerful yet as Action SharePoint showed it was so easy to customise. They demonstrated how you could add to dropdown lists or correct spelling mistakes. They also showed how easy it was to change the company logo on all the pages. Sidney thought that would be useful next time Percy Pottersgate decided the current logo was just the wrong shade of green.

The part the Sidney had liked most about the morning presentation, apart from the croissants, was that the men from Action SharePoint kept saying that even the free SharePoint Foundation could perform all of the tasks they demonstrated and was a good starting point for many companies. Also he had learnt that SharePoint Foundation could be installed on a laptop running Windows Enterprise so Sidney was going to try it at home. He might even be able to use it to classify his prized collection of copies of the Radio Times dating back to 1970.

The morning had been very relaxed and Sidney had been quite relieved too that they hadn’t started by going round the room having to say who they all were. Sidney never enjoyed this part as Pottersgate Paints always sounded like quite a boring place to work compared to all the other IT people. At the end of the session though, Sidney had been eating the last croissant when one of the Action SharePoint guys came up to him. He had struggled to read the company name on Sidney’s name badge which wasn’t surprising as Sidney had struggled to fit the whole of Pottersgate Paints in. He had started writing far too big and it had only been when he had reached the second ‘T’ that he had realised he would struggle to fit it all in. It was also unfortunate that the Consultant had chosen that point to ask Sidney if he had ever used SharePoint as Sidney was just digesting a piece of very crispy and by then cold bacon. After taking a very large gulp Sidney explained the problems he faced at Pottersgate Paints and how he had to make a presentation to the Board next week on how they could improve their information management.

As Sidney finally started to move on the motorway he was feeling really rather pleased with himself. It wasn’t just because he had purchased a miniature Bob Willis from the Warwickshire Club Shop, but he had also accepted the offer from the Action SharePoint blokes to demonstrate the benefits SharePoint to the Pottersgate Paints Board next Thursday. Maybe Sidney could yet be the saviour of Pottersgate Paints.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 7)

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.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 6)

Thanks to the joys of the M6 motorway it was after 9am when Sidney finally arrived in the office. He was usually first there but for once Colin and Peter Pottersgate had beaten him to it. The two were arguing about who should respond to Gwen Gardner’s email (typed entirely in capitals), saying “LASER PRINTER NEEDS TONER NOW!!!” Even though he was scared of the MD’s secretary or, ‘MD’s PA’ as she had started calling herself since last November, he wasn’t in the mood for Colin and Peter’s squabbles so decided to deal with Ms Gardner himself.

Sidney knew that Gwen Gardner’s printer was a newish HP Laser but could not remember which one. If only Colin had finished the very complex IT Asset Register he had started eighteen months ago. Perhaps if they ever did go for this SharePoint thingy it could help them to record their IT Inventory better. Maybe he could ask Hannah Harper if she knew if SharePoint could do inventories? There was only one thing for it; Sidney would have to go and make a note of the model number of the printer again.

Sidney was in luck because as he got to Gwen Gardner’s door he could see she was just going out for a cigar break. So Sidney hid outside the door until she had gone before creeping in to check which toner type the printer took. Sid never really understood why the company had so many different types of printers, but knew that Gwen Gardner always insisted on a new one if somebody else in the company had a better one than she did.

“Ah Sidney, how’s that nephew of mine doing?” Percy Pottersgate shouted from behind Sidney causing Sidney to bang his head on the open printer. “Hope you are looking after him and especially that left foot. Oh by the way I am calling an emergency Management Team Meeting at half ten so don’t be late”.

Sidney was already behind with his jobs for the day especially after Peter Pottersgate had declared that he didn’t think his uncle would like him changing backup tapes or updating virus checkers on servers. Last thing Sidney needed was another meeting but at least it showed he was now part of the Management Team.

In the IT Store Cupboard Sidney searched desperately for a toner box with the number Q2612A on. He found everyone but this number including fourteen C3906A’s. Which apparently was for the 6L series although Sidney didn’t think they had any of these printers left? Some kind of electronic Stock Control system was obviously needed so again Sidney made a mental note to ask Hannah Harper. Just as Sidney was about to give in on his search for a Q2612A he was relieved to see one right on the top shelf. It took some getting with a fine balancing act, but eventually Sidney retrieved the toner box. Unfortunately to Sidney’s dismay the box contained an already used cartridge. Oh no, he was going to have to tell scary Gwen that they had run out and he would have to order one. Last time it had taken nearly four weeks for a new one to arrive. This was partly due to the way that the Pottersgate Paints Purchasing Order system worked requiring two director’s signatures (made worse as it was during the Ryder Cup) and partly because the parcel had been delivered to ‘The Stores’ and nobody had told IT that it was there. Maybe if Sidney just gave the empty cartridge in the box a jolly good shake he could then pretend to Gwen Gardner that it was a new one?

Sidney arrived late for the emergency Management Team Meeting and all the seats had gone so he had to stand at the back. Gwen Gardner was moaning about the poor quality of the minutes from the last meeting and telling Percy Pottersgate that he shouldn’t have meetings when she was not there. It soon became apparent that the meeting had been called because sales at Pottersgate Paints were down and things were not going well. Cuts were going to have to be made. There was talk of restructuring and the need for voluntary redundancies. Gwen Gardner told the meeting that she would be circulating a list later today of people who in her opinion should consider ‘voluntary’ redundancy. It was decided to amalgamate Finance and Purchasing. Sidney didn’t think he should point out that it had been less than two years since they were split after originally being one department. It was clear savings needed to be made and Percy Pottersgate informed the meeting that as from the end of September they were cancelling the licences for the ERP system that they spent over two hundred grand implementing in 2007. So they would need to find a new system to deal with ordering, shipping and invoicing as well as staff records. Sidney’s heart sank and he knew that this was going to mean a lot more work for him. Maybe he would be lucky and his name might be on the Gwen Gardner ‘Voluntary’ List?

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 5)

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’.”

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 4)

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.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 3)

It was Friday lunch-time and with most of Pottersgate Paints down the pub Sidney was busy googling trying to find out about ‘managing information’. He had been invited to join them down the pub by the MD’s nephew Peter, but was instead glad to get some time alone in the office. It had been a very difficult week with Peter Pottersgate criticising most things that Sidney did. He had complained that the Administrator account was still called ‘Administrator’, he had complained that the version of Office was only 2003 and had criticised Sidney’s style of trousers. The annoying nephew had also by-passed the Corporate Firewall so he could get to YouTube, disabled his virus checker and downloaded four films in full causing the company Internet connection to grind to a halt.

Sidney now had just two weeks to come up with a proposal for the Board of how he could better organise the company’s mound of information. He hadn’t really got very far, but under Peter Pottersgate’s guidance had started using Social Networking to get to talk to other IT Managers. He had joined Facebook, started to Twitter and was now Linked-in. Sid was quite impressed that he now had nearly twenty Facebook friends even if only two lived in England and several had names he wasn’t sure how you pronounced them. He had even been contacted by a woman who claimed she went to school with him at Perry Barr High. He really couldn’t place her but thought best not to say. So on all these sites Sidney asked for everyone’s advice on ‘Information Storage’. The replies back ranged from the far too technical to the offer of a one-to-one session priced at £400 with ‘Luscious Lips Linda’. But at least he was getting to interact with real people.

Sidney was trying to complete the far too complex Excel Expense Form that Fred Farthing, from Finance, had designed. All Sidney was trying to do was reclaim his rail fare from his trip to London last week. Once completed the form had to then be signed by his Line Manager, witnessed by somebody who wasn’t in his department and countersigned by a director. All this usually took up to three weeks to achieve by which time it was either lost in the internal mail or the monthly Expenses BACs run had been missed. Perhaps there was a more efficient way of doing this. After writing the amount in the wrong box Sidney gave in and decided to just forget about the train ticket. Instead he decided it was a good time to go through the pile of mail in his In-Tray. Actually the incoming mail also filled his Out-tray and his Pending one too. Much of it was junk mail and Sidney managed to fill all three bins in the IT Office with it without the need to open any of it. As usual his ‘Computer Weekly’ remained in it’s polythene wrapper although like many IT Managers he did have a quick read of the Dilbert cartoon strip on the back and thought to himself, “how true”. It was as he was trying to find room in one of the bins for the ‘Computer weekly’ that he noticed the article just above Dilbert trying to put out a Server Room fire. It caught Sidney’s eye because it mentioned the launch of SharePoint 2010. This rang a bell because one of his new Twitter chums had said they were attending the launch of this ???when??. Sidney was going to read more about it and even ripped a hole in the polythene so he could do so when a new email message arrived on his computer.

Sidney was excited to see the email in his Inbox was from Hannah Harper. Now, after Hannah’s last email left him in no doubt that she never wanted to see him again after he had stood her up he was somewhat surprised that he was now reading a very severe telling off from her for the fact that he hadn’t emailed her all week. She was obviously still very cross with him and again the last line emphasised the fact that she never wanted to see him again. Sidney had never really managed to get to understand the working of the female mind. He was unsure whether a reply was required or not. The end of the message clearly suggested not but the start was complaining about him not being in touch. Sidney decided that he needed to write a grovelling apology as he really wanted another chance to see Hannah Harper. Just as Sidney was typing the email Ken Klondike came loudly in the room.

“Six days. Six bloody days I have been without my email”, Ken Klondike was not happy. Sid looked somewhat confused.

“Did you log a helpdesk call Ken?”

“I rang last Friday but nobody has bothered to come and fix it”, Ken was fuming and Sid tried to recall being told about this. “I want it fixed today”, Ken banged dramatically on Sid’s desk (well Colin’s desk) and then stormed out. Sidney was left to frantically check through his emails to see if he had missed something. He remembered Colin’s fondness for post-it notes and quickly scanned through the twenty or so around his desk. None of them mentioned Ken Klondike’s email. But then he noticed the one saying ‘Buy Hamster Food’ had something written on the back. Sidney turned over the slightly greasy yellow post-it and saw the words ‘KEN EMAIL BROKEN URGENT’. They really needed a better IT Helpdesk system. At that point Sidney’s PC flashed up a message saying that updates had been applied and it was restarting. It was asking him if he wanted to send the open message so Sidney clicked ‘Yes’. Unfortunately all Sidney had written in the message to Hannah was “Hi Hannah, I know I have been ignoring you so I will just...”

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 2)

Sidney was in early on the Monday morning as he had to create twenty-three accounts for new starters in the newly purchased Oxford branch of Pottersgate Paints. Even though the takeover of Tonks Tints had taken place three weeks ago it was only on Friday as he was leaving that Sidney had been informed of the names of the employees who would be joining Pottersgate Paints. Oh, and told they would all need logons and email accounts for 9am Monday. So each one would need a Share creating on the already full shared drive and added to the appropriate group. Why did none of them have easy names to spell? The shortest surname seemed to have nine letters in that could have easily been a conundrum on ‘Countdown’ . Another issue was that Sidney had been given the list of users on a hand written piece of paper from Gwen Gardner. Sidney was convinced she must have been doctor in a previous life as he struggled to make sense of many of the names. Then of course there appeared to be two Malcolm MacDonalds. This posed two questions for Sidney. Firstly, was it the former Newcastle and Arsenal player who once scored five goals for England and was then dropped? Then secondly, how did his naming convention work with duplicate names. This was the last thing he needed on a Monday Morning especially when there was no milk left.

It was just one minute to nine when a stressed Sidney had finished creating the accounts. The morning did not improve though when he finally found time to check his email. Firstly to find an email from Sally Staff, in Personnel, saying that he should not use the list of new starters that Gwen Gardner had supplied him with as this was the wrong list and attached was the correct list of nineteen completely different names. He scrolled through a list of several hundred emails that had arrived in his Inbox and one message jumped out at him. It was from the lovely Hannah Harper. After Sidney had unfortunately not made the Edgar Edmonds party on Thursday night he was not surprised by the tone of the message, although, he was surprised that the ‘Adult Content’ filter had not intercepted the message. She was not happy and appeared to be blaming Sidney for everything that was wrong in her life. The final line in the message stated clearly that she never wanted to see him again. This was emphasised by being in bold, underlined, a bright red font and size twenty four. Sidney was even more taken aback by the lack of kisses at the foot of the message. Just as Sidney was trying to decide whether it was worth a reply Percy Pottersgate stormed in the room followed by a very young looking but muscular lad.

“You lazying around again?”, shouted Pottersgate at a rather startled Sidney. Sidney tied to defend himself at the same time as minimising the email from Hannah. “Anyway, no time for small talk. Here is Peter. Hope you are going to treat him well. I have told him to be my eyes and ears down here”, Percy Pottersgate didn’t seem to see the need to stop to breathe. “Oh, and whatever you do make sure you look after that left leg of his”. In a flash the MD had left the room and it was just Sidney and young Peter Pottersgate.

“Why is your left leg so special then?” Sidney enquired.

“ That’s none of your business. Anyway, where shall I sit?” Peter gave a very hostile response.

Sidney hadn’t really planned the seating arrangements and there wasn’t much room anyway. His IT Assistant Colin Cousins was off this week on holiday so Peter could have his desk. Well, that was the idea but when Sidney offered this to Peter the response was not good.

“No way! That’s in totally the wrong place and too small. I will have that one instead”, the rather annoying boy snarled at Sidney. Despite his protests about it being his desk Sidney was fighting a losing battle. “I think my Uncle would want me to have that desk. Or do you want me to call him and ask him?”

Sidney gave in and let the youngster have his desk but undocked his laptop and moved it to Colin’s desk. He could tell it was going to be a very long three months.

“Have you got any macs?” Peter yelled out.

Luckily Sidney realised he meant Macintosh computers before he went off on one about how take away food was not permitted in the IT Office. Sidney had taken the decision to ban take away food after Colin had somehow got an onion ring jammed in his DVD drive.

The morning did not go well with Peter Pottersgate driving Sidney even madder than he usually was. The continual reference to the fact that ‘my uncle wouldn’t like that’ was really getting to Sidney. At least the nephew’s two and a half hour lunch break gave Sidney some peace and the chance to start to look at the important issue of how best to manage the information of Pottersgate Paints. When he had mentioned this challenge to young Pottersgate earlier in the morning he had been rather unsure what the response was. It sounded like ‘Moss’ but this made no sense at all to Sidney.

Sidney decided to start by listing how many different Shares there were on the different network servers. By the time Peter returned from lunch (with a one foot long subway sandwich) Sidney had listed 183 network shares. These included several similar ones with slightly different spellings, like ‘Commercial’ and ‘Comercial’. Sidney just didn’t know what to do next.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 1)

It was now nearly half past ten on a Thursday night and while most of the employees of Pottersgate Paints were at ‘The Flipping Frog’ public house, toasting the retirement of Edgar Edmonds from the Research Department, Sidney was stuck in the very loud Server Room. He was urgently trying to free up space on the Exchange Mail Server after it had ground to a halt six hours ago. It hadn’t been helped by the fact that the MD Percy Pottersgate had sent an email out to all the Management Team with a 4Mb attachment in. This was made considerably worse when most of the Management Team decided to forward the email to the whole of their department.

Sidney had long since given up on the idea of joining the rest of the staff at ‘The Flipping Frog’ despite his desire to actually talk to Hannah Harper from Accounts. IT Manager Sidney had first noticed Miss Harper when he ran an Advanced Excel training course last year. He ran eight three hour sessions and it was during the third one when this petite dark haired lady caught his eye. She had a smile that really did belong on a coffee advert. Sidney tried everything to get to talk to Hannah Harper after that session including deliberately disabling her domain account so she had to ring the Helpdesk. In the end the pair had started a little flirty emailing conversation, but the problem was Hannah had no idea who Sidney was (although perhaps that was a good thing) as he didn’t make an impression on the Training Course and IT were not people you generally saw. The IT Office was at the far corner of the manufacturing site and for most of the employees ‘IT’ were just the people who got the blame for most things. If the Internet was slow, documents lost or printers running low on toner; it was the fault of IT. Despite this, in the last few days Sidney had exchanged enough emails with Hannah that she was quite excited about them both going to Edgar Edmonds leaving do. But being IT Manager meant being on-call 24 hours a day and not being entitled to a social life.

Finally, at ten to one, Sidney had freed up enough space, although maybe he had been a little premature in deleting Edgar Edmonds’ mailbox even if it did free up 4Gb. Now he would just restart the Exchange Server ‘Cornelius’ and then he could drive home and maybe get a few hours sleep before his 6am alarm. After what seemed an eternity ‘Cornelius’ restarted but then a quick look at the Event Log could see red error after red error. Sid was tempted to just ignore them, but he knew they wouldn’t go away. They were errors all saying, ‘unable to connect to backup device on Taylor’. The previous IT Manager, Charlie Caton, had been a fan of ‘The Planet of the Apes’ films so he had named all the servers after characters from the films. Now they had nearly thirty servers, finding new characters had been quite a challenge. Sidney knew the importance of a successful backup so knew he had to resolve these errors. It seemed quite likely that Sidney would not be going home tonight. If only there was some way of letting his dogs, ‘Max’ and ‘Freeway’ know.

Friday morning saw a rough looking Sidney summoned by the MD’s PA, Gwen Gardner, to see the MD himself, Percy Pottersgate. Sidney like many other employees at Pottersgate Paints was scared of Gwen. She believed that as the Managing Director’s PA that she ran the company and even when she wasn’t smoking her cigars she was an intimidating sight in her pinstriped suits. She always reminded Sidney of the Spitting Image version of Margaret Thatcher, but Sid thought it best to keep this private. Sidney waited patiently outside Gwen Gardner’s door knowing that like a Headmaster with a naughty pupil she would keep him waiting even though she knew he was there. Sally Staff, from Personnel walked by and complimented Sid on his designer stubble. Sidney didn’t bother to explain it was due to his all-nighter or that he was actually not named Charlie.

Sidney stood in front of Percy Pottersgate’s great ornamental desk not knowing quite why he was there.

“These network drives are a shambles”, said the MD, “I have spent the last fifteen minutes trying to find where I put last year’s golf pairings”.

Percy Pottersgate did not look up at Sidney once. “Information is vital to the running of Pottersgate Paints. I want to be able to find what I want straight away”, Mr Pottersgate was clearly not impressed.

Sidney enquired what the name of the file was, or when it was created, but the MD just shook his head and said, “You are the IT boffin not me, how am I supposed to know the names of all my files”.

Sidney tried to offer his assistance but could tell he was on to a loser especially as he remembered the last time he had tried to help that the MD had got fourteen separate mapped network drives.

“Look there is a Board Meeting in three weeks time and I want you to give me a detailed cost effective proposal by then of how you can sort out this shambles”, barked out Percy Pottersgate.

Sidney went to leave the room totally perplexed at how he was going to solve this information mess, but Percy stopped him. “Don’t forget Peter starts with you on Monday”, the MD said.

This was news to Sidney and he asked who Peter was.

“My nephew, of course, Peter Pottersgate, he’s halfway through a Computer degree thingy at College and I said he could work with you for three months. Didn’t I tell you?” Percy Pottersgate finally looked up at Sidney, “Give me a chance to find out what you IT guys really spend all day doing”.