Disappointment all round

Usual gloom and doom in the office with the (ever-fainter) hope of the mystery investor consortium not asking to see the books after all the only mitigation. Meanwhile fewer and fewer make the journey in and the quality personnel on the front desk of the managed-service office company are assuming we’ve had such a cracking year we’re all taking early and extended Christmas holidays. Which of course we may be, but not for the reasons assumed.
Disappointments mount up. The expected major deals are either being deferred to a point in time when we’re unlikely to be around or have gone to the evil scheming competition. In one case we have two channels competing for a very sizeable deal and their dissing of each other has caused confusion in the customer who is now ‘rethinking the whole project’. Think fast, buddy, or you’ll have to re-think the basic software as well, unless the escrow people will let you have a working copy.

Perhaps a disappointment but possibly a blessing in disguise is that we no longer have a system to record our miserable performance on, the supplier having finally had enough of unsigned or post-dated cheques and pulled the plug, ‘temporarily’. In the meantime we’re recording deals won while its unavailable on a yellow post-it note. Well we will when we have some.

Not getting paid hardly ranks as a disappointment as its so normal. After the shock of the early salary round expectations rose ever so slightly but the normal despondency has resumed in spades. There are super-secret meetings daily between those tasked with Corporate Finance and Overall Management Responsibility, neither of which term has had any significant meaning in recent months. Why the meetings guys? What’s to decide? If someone is offering to pay for a share of this debacle at any valuation our answer has got to be yes, unqualified, no ifs buts or maybes, you can put your drug-addled retarded teenage son in charge (that’s sort of what the last guy did), and we’ll all dress as maids and sing Gilbert and Sullivan medleys – if that’s what it takes (Finglass, please send me the name of your Octoberfest supplier, we may need costumes in a bit of a hurry if they read this). Just give us the money, please!

But there’s disappointments even for the gifted few. I didn’t witness but can well imagine the disappointment when the email announcing the Marketwatch Editors CEO of the Year 2005 was opened on a certain PC. Ed Zander of Motorola? What’s he had to contend with? Call that a disruptive technology?