Mostly Harmless

Matters Arising

Disclaimer

The Boss is on the hoof.

He is not abandoning us, merely relocating. Around here it is often feasible for a team member to move to a different country, or even hemisphere, and still remain in the same team - although it does feel a bit odd when that team member is the manager. The other odd thing is that he does not appear to have yet finalized where he is moving to.

We had a team meeting (conference call) yesterday which underlined this situation. Algernon (the manager) decided to make it a video conference. We did not succeed in booking Brighton - the biggest and swishest meeting room - or even Filey, so we're all crammed into a broom-cupboard of an office with no windows and going by the name of Mother Iveys. There is a jumble of windows on the screen: us - looking like a submarine crew discussing whether to drop the ballast and cry Mayday, the guys from France, a couple of webcams and a blank window where Algernon is conspicuously absent.

Risto I-am-not-a-Finn Kymmentäkivi and Arnie Shepherd (scourge of EPROMs and inventor of the WiFi deep fryer) unmute the phone to float a pre-meeting proposal about the reintroduction of doughnut days. Donna and Ursula, who have become oddly inseparable over the last couple of weeks, are not prompted to comment. Donna has her nose in a book entitled "Additive Cellular Automata, Volume 1", but she breaks off between chapters to refresh her lippie. The atmosphere is becoming oppressive when, at last, Algernon's window crackles into life.

"Team! Glad to see [puff] you could all [puff] make it!"

There is a confusing whirl of colour in the window, caused mainly by camera shake. Then it steadies and Algernon's face comes into view. He is looking bronzed and healthy and sporting surfer's sun-block on nose and lips. As he speaks he is rigging a spinnaker on the deck of a roomy-looking yacht which is coursing swiftly over a glittering sea beneath a sky which is blue from horizon to horizon...

Posted at 12:03PM Mar 27, 2007 by John Alderson in Lake Guillemont  |  Comments[0]