Monday: Mike came in for the morning meeting and realized the Great Coffee Saga was through, so he stayed.
AJ called us together for the morning meeting and said he'd decided over the weekend to implement a "self-training" policy, and we all are encouraged to go to evening classes as the company won't provide on-site training any more. James asked if that meant the company would pay tuition fees, but AJ ended the meeting then as he had to go make a phone call.
Amy said she'd had on-site training but Donna said that was only how to handle the switchboard.
The second plant coming through the flat one in Andy's pot grew visibly over the weekend. It's nice and warm in there (he never opens the window) and it's getting well-watered, although we all think it's getting the dregs from Andy's coffee too. Maybe it's the caffeine!
Tuesday: Guru Bob rang me to say they were coming down tomorrow to wire in the new email server. I said there was a socket for it next the current server and would I get a new UPS with it? He said no, I'd have to put in a requisition for one. He said two of his Head Office IT personnel were coming down to install the software package on everybody's PC, so I should tell them all we'd need access to their machines at some point in the day. I said what software is it and he said M$. I said wait a minute, everyone here's using Lotus and won't that cause problems and he said oh didn't he tell me - the email's bundled into M$ Office and they'll be installing that on everyone's PC tomorrow. I said no, he didn't tell me. He said AJ arranged it so we'd all be the same as Head Office. I said how long will we have Lotus and he said two more weeks, and he was sure he'd told me. He then said oh, he'd told AJ to tell me - hadn't AJ told me? I said no. He said just do the best you can and hung up.
So that's it - we all belong to Bill Gates now.
Wednesday: The two Head Office IT people came in at 9:00, just after I'd calmed everyone down and told them the lie that these new programs were more or less the same. Amy thought they'd come to put in the automated phone system and started panicking, but they said no, they'd brought the email server. AJ came in with them and wanted to know why I had to shut down the server while I switched plugs, and how long did they think they'd be installing the new word processing equipment. They said they didn't know, it depended and he walked off saying surely they should know by now how long it took. I said forget it, he's always like that.
The older one's called Mark and he's about the same age as me, so we sat watching while Pete (the other one) did the work. Mark said he was a trainee, so it was good experience for him. Pete said he might be a trainee but that didn't mean we could breathe over his shoulder like that. I said at least we were breathing quietly and not just giggling. They'd brought a new UPS for it too, so that's OK. Once Pete finished they went around to install it onto each PC, and Mark got to do AJ's as he was the senior. He came back in and said how do you put up with him wittering on like that, it'd drive you mad so I said was it about the Greek holiday as we'd all heard it. He said yes, he'd got that, but he'd also got how AJ was turning the company around and how well we were doing with him at the helm. I said you're from Head Office, he has to tell you that in case you've heard different. He said yes, he had.
I asked Mark to let me do my own - he didn't mind - and I got him to talk me through what settings they'd put on everyone else's. He showed me how to program the mailboxes in as well, and set up the gateway on my PC as Guru Bob had told him I was to have net access. They'd finished by about 1:30 so after they'd gone I spent the rest of the lunchbreak setting up a couple bookmarks and playing about with my settings to try to get the desktop to look a bit better.
The big printer wasn't working after the lunchbreak again. Walked over, pulled Mike's mobile charger, plugged the printer back in.
Thursday: Went around this morning checking everyone's taskbar started OK and saying yes, you have to use M$. I said leave email alone for now and I'd write out a guide on how to use it, and showed Donna and LeeAnn how to convert files across. Donna said she'd just converted a document with a table in and the assistant had come up and changed everything and why had it done that, so I lied and said it's being helpful and went through and reversed each change. The assistant started jumping about and throwing lightbulbs around, so I shut it off. LeeAnn said hers was OK, but it wasn't and it'd lost half the table and all the formatting. I'll have to show Amy how to convert files tomorrow - I can't face it today.
Friday: We all went in this morning to look at Andy's plants. The second one growing through the flat one's growing like crazy. It's got a strong stem and leaves coming on the side as well - they were just little lumps yesterday, and today you can see they're leaves waiting to open out.
AJ said at the morning meeting how M$ would bring us into step with our sister companies and Head Office. He forgot to say that's only once all of them have M$ too. Mark told me on Wednesday that only Head Office and about half the acquired companies are on it, the rest are on Lotus, Corel or others I've never even heard of. One company's out of the loop entirely and running StarOffice - their outgoing MD sold it to them cheap and nobody told them they couldn't.
Showed Amy how to convert files today, and she's great! I found out Donna and LeeAnn are having trouble as they aren't converting through the format I said to use, they're picking one of the others as and when they feel like it. Amy just sits there and does exactly what I told her to do, and if there's a problem she stops and comes to ask me what she should do before just ploughing on and overwriting it into a mess. I've asked her to convert all the documents while I do the spreadsheets, and if I can, I'll show her how to do the simple formula conversions too. It's going to save me a lot of time.
read 00/09/11-15 or read 00/09/25-29 