I was lying on a sunbed in Fethiye, Turkey, when the mobile rang (sad, but true!). It was Suhail. ISD had just come out of a meeting where they were all told that the High Wycombe Office was going to close and we would all have to adapt to work elsewhere or leave the company. This news wasn't altogether unexpected but it was a bit of a downer being so far away from what was going on. I hung up and went to get another beer for Ali and me. This holiday was to be the last bit of relaxation for a whole year.........
Project Fusion was the buzz-word when I returned. As documented in more satirical articles on this site (eg. Exodus), it was a combined think-tank between the two companies involved. A range of employees from all tranches of the businesses spent their three-month (or more) sentence at the Spectrum building in Bristol's city-centre.
I only ever visited Spectrum for two days. At the beginning of August, just after the project had begun, people had begun to notice that the Windows 95 terminals within the Spectrum building were setup in a way that rendered them half-useless ! Coming from a WOD background, (see Genesis) if was a strange kind of shock to have to go round 50 terminals and install the same patches and change the system settings. I also met a couple of the support staff from Sun Life. Tina Moore, Karen Johnson and some mad sod called Jon Cherry. I think they probably were a bit bemused by all this as well?!
Late September, I was sent down to Sun Life Centre on a three-day secondment with their IT helpdesk. The main difference was that it was a 'Servicedesk'..... it didn't provide help all the time as other jobs were carried out as well, eg. ERFs, EMail....anyway, let's just say that it was *different*. The second day of my secondment was a bit different as the rest of Wycombe Computer Services came down on a familiarisation visit which consisted of a lecture on the latest Fusion status as well as a coach-trip of the city and surrounding areas (2+2 = 4 ??...you got it !) - Incidentally, we'd never have guessed that Jon Goodland, by his own admission, had swotted up on his tour-guide stuff only the night before. During the two evenings, I met up with Allan Horn, Dave Lester and Malc Keep who were on the Fusion team at the time. I was introduced to 'Smiles Brewery tap' which is still a rave if ever I walk past it and also the 'Thai House' (whose sister-restaurant is just 400 yards away from my front door and definitely worth the monthly visit !!)
The secondment finished and the next couple of months consisted of trying to get figures to the Fusion teams as well as coping with cross-visits between the two companies. People had started to leave, despite the attempts to allay fears of job security by one of the IT Managers whose idea of an hour was 30 minutes - nuff said, it was a tough time for all. Our job was assisted by an external company called 'Pink Elephant' and an ever present feature around the helpdesks was......
Anna had this knack of asking for the most impossible stats and most definitely had Steve and Vance puzzling over her requirements...
At the end of October, Steve had a chat with all of us regarding our stance on relocation. As a result, only Vance and I were part of the secondment to the Servicedesk starting on November 17th 1997.
Despite the Renault Laguna that tried to kill me and someone almost suffocating John Brain and Mark Ferris by setting off the Halon extinguishant system in the Wycombe computer-room, things were comparatively quiet on the work-front. On the merger-front, I had eventually agreed with Nigel Freeth that I would give Bristol a go.... and on Christmas Eve 97, I was given a start-date of the 27th January 98 !!!!!
My last day at Wycombe was very hard, mainly due to the many friends that had been made over the previous 11 years that I would no longer be in day to day contact with. A lot of what went on on the last day was in the Social Club, a place on the Wycombe site probably more special due to the bar work... however, I did manage to find a couple of previously unpublished pictures from within the office on my last day there.....
Allan presenting me a with a lovely bottle of Chablis |
Joyce, Biggles, Colin and Susan |
Kath and me |
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A certainly different world was the immediate observation after passing Swindon on our journey west for our first week of work. For a start, this was a big unknown. On coming off the M4 motorway, the comparative world of AEL still very much dwelling on our minds, we noticed a ten-fold increase in the number of cyclists on the road. Coming from a very hilly environment, it was strange trying to learn once again how to overtake these alien machines without being blitzed by an oncoming vehicle. The trusty 205 was only a baby in the power department and some of these two-wheeled wizards were doing in excess of 30 mph !! We didn't have too much overtaking to do for long as the traffic suddenly increased 10-fold 2 minutes after leaving the motorway !!
It may have helped knowing the times and the routes to avoid but the anticipation of 'the first day at work' at SLC somewhat made the time pass quite quickly. Ali and I both had the proverbial butterflies as this was the start of the gamble we had both made ......would the challenge of moving everything that we had into a completely unknown environment pay off ?? .....It was with tremendous anxiety that we eventually made it past the engineless vehicles and into our first day with the new regime !
For me it was a continuation of the secondment that Vance and I had begun back in November 97 but for Ali it was completely new experience.
SLC itself is an impressive building with resemblences to a shopping-mall and Alcatraz prison. Having arrived just after 8 in the morning, we cooled off the road-rage with a cooked breakfast in the company restaurant. Probably one of the best fry-ups in ages. With a gutful of bacon and hash-browns it was up the escalators for the first 'proper' day at work there.
The Servicedesk consisted of Karen, Tracey, Mary, Shelley, Nick, Helen, Simon, Lynda and myself. I was given a seat adjacent to the big void that ran the length of the building. Affectionately know as 'The Street' it allowed me to watch an endless stream of people crossing the catwalks on all levels. The guys and gals on the desk were very friendly and I guess, due to the fact I had come from AEL, were tolerant to the fact that I had never had to deal with such diverse things such as OS/2 (brilliant for its era back in 1987) and ERFs (customer 'wish' forms that still fox us all !!). Karen and Tracey were in charge as we were without a team-leader. The section seemed to weather the day to day calls very well - averaging probably 200 between 4-5 people.
I certainly missed the AEL environment. Only a complete cretin wouldn't. As the merger seemingly hadn't started in earnest, I was effectively working for a completely different company. Occasionally, I would speak to someone from an IFA office (Maxine @ Bristol IFA for one) which was an instant pull back to the past. Occasionally, the mandatory departure for five minutes to have a B&H, became a necessity as I struggled with the comparatively stifling procedures which turned a two-minute helpdesk-fix into a five-day one. True, AEL got the job done by something called direct accountability. I don't criticise central control but I find it very overbearing on some occasions. Even in the AEL days, the administration of WOD was very tightly controlled by a select few to which the lower realms of IT support were in constant question.
After the day's work, Ali and I would drive to the centre of Bristol to spend our weekday nights in one of the hotels. The first week, we were stuck in some 'spit and sawdust' place in Clifton. It was nice at first finishing the day and then going out to find some food in one of the many restaurants that the city-centre has. This novelty wore off after day two.... we were just worn out with the battle that went on mentally... "Have we made the right decision?" I think we were genuinely lonely. We were one of the first to make the move West and we both had other things back in High Wycombe. Ali had her family and badminton and I had my second job working behind the High Wycombe Social Club bar and Darts. Nevertheless, a club-sanwich at The Grand was certainly worth having !! .....
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The merger bulletins still came through but due to the learning curve in the new job and the reluctance to take on tales of 'doom and gloom' from AEL, I very rarely read them. We were in limbo, punctuated by a return to High Wycombe of a weekend where I'd go back to the Social Club and play darts whilst Ali would visit her family.
There was a constant..... Wycombe Wanderers on a Saturday afternoon... despite the dark days of Alan Smith and the recently departed John Gregory, we were now looking to pull out of the relegation zone and back into the safety of mid-table !!
And so, on the Sunday afternoon.... we would do the washing and ironing and pack the suit-carrier for yet another week !! The new house was miles off......the solicitor had gone skiing !!!
In the middle of February, like a bolt out of the blue, we were told that the High Wycombe helpdesk was to close and consequently, all calls company-wide would suddenly zoom into the Servicedesk. This was no minor event and I think it was a major surprise to both sides of the East-West divide that this could happen....particularly with less than a fortnight's warning. After shovelling through another day of ERF forms, Ali and I returned to the hotel (The Marriot this time). Times ahead were going to get more complex........
The new mix of calls that were received were hard, but at the same time, a remenisce from the past. It made a refreshing change to speak to someone about a problem with WOD but the additional calls about such diverse things such as 'online-batch' was a mystery in many ways. It was certainly a jump into the deep-end and we were very very reliant on Vance, Colin and Nigel back in High Wycombe. We received three new recruits to the team to replace the recently-departed Helen..... Mike, Jackie and Charlie came into the fray !
Thankfully, at the same time, WOD appeared on the desk !..... We only had a couple of terminals but at least we could keep track of what was going on via the noticeboards. Having the first WOD terminals also opened up another problem. A lot of visitors from Wycombe and Coventry wanted to log in to check their EMail. With the lower network speed, it was a five-ten minutes process with a very big chance of the whole system halting with an Invalid Command.Com message. The desk got allocated an MDP section code, which was great as we could now set ourselves up on a Bristol server rather than hammering the links by logging into Wycombe. The desk also received a team leader, Anne was a port over from the IFA side of the business and she quickly established her catchphrase, "Calls in the Queue!"
The calls quickly rose to a daily average of around 450 !! The record for one day so far was 696 - so we would need a disaster to reach that 700 mark ! (I am not asking for one though as it is hard-work!). Allan Horn started making more regular appearances around the office as his work became more Bristol-based. Another big event loomed up in March.... The House Move !.....
 Brecon Way - Kitchen |
 Brecon Way - Lounge |
 Couzens Close - Lounge |
 Couzens Close - Bedroom 1 |
 View - 27th March 1998 |
 View - 30th March 1998 |
From this point on, the AEL side to this saga decreases dramatically and I wouldn't want to intrude on download time by placing a lot of work-specifics or personal stuff. I know that there are many from AEL that also followed this route...indeed Mark Kenyon, Sarah Leadbetter and Ian Edwards live just behind the house in the photos above !.........
Andy (&Ali) 1998
