Confessions of an IT Manager_Phil Factor

Section I: On Learning to Love your Manager 33
Rather poetically, Dan again turned that same interesting shade of bathroom
pink that Keith and I had admired in the Dahlia. He stood up as if to speak, his
mouth flapped open uselessly and he slumped back down into his executive
swivel chair.
He managed a spluttering parting salvo about the incompetence of the IT
department, but he was a beaten man, and everyone could see it.
The room gaped in astonishment as I led Tony from the room to the lift, and
back to the safety of the IT office. After a soothing cup of tea, Tony had
recovered well enough to ask the obvious question.
"Ah well, Tony," I started, "it is all down to information gathering and,
intelligence. And lack of intelligence. There are two rules in corporate life that
are inviolate. Desperate Dan forgot the first rule, never to be forgotten by an
ambitious manager; that a torrid bout of after-work lovemaking on top of one's
boss's desk, with one's boss's libidinous secretary, may end up providing the
wrong sort of visibility."
"And the second rule?"
"Sharon forgot the second rule: if you really must indulge in a torrid bout of
after-work lovemaking with a …er ... rising manager, never describe the nutsand-bolts
of the experience in an email to your closest girl friends at work. I'm
sure she swore them to secrecy but this sort of email is dynamite – especially as
in it she revealed her pet name for Dan, a playful reference to his sexual
desktop stamina. From that point, it was inevitable that the mail would be
forwarded on and on through the Email system and eventually turn up in the
inbox of one of my contacts in the office intelligence network. Such is the
power of Email in our lives."
And so it was that, the next time I popped up to see Keith, he shook me
warmly by the hand, and gazed at me in fond gratitude through eyes moist with
emotion, before we settled down to our customary chat about gardening. We
didn't even bother to have an IT Strategy paper to hand, as Desperate Dan had
asked for a transfer, and left for another part of the company in Holland.
It was difficult to be a thrusting, dignified, ambitious executive with
everyone calling him 'Bunnikins'.