Last Thursday night, just before I went to bed, I did what
most of us do.
No not that.
I checked my computer to see what was in my diary for the
following day. To my horror I found that my electronic calendar had been wiped
clean. There were no entries for the next day, the next week, the next month!
They had all gone. Panic set in immediately. What had I done?
My wife Stella, my children, and my former PA Sarah Jane will
all readily attest to my utter incompetence with IT. I had not realised that
every time I entered a new meeting into my electronic diary I was doing so via
the Thames Water server. Thus when Thames, quite rightly, terminated my access
to their IT systems all my diary appointments disappeared also.
Upon realising this I called my friends at Thames and begged
for their help. Lisa Barrett (PA to the CEO) was particularly helpful… once she
had got over her (cruel, vindictive) laughter. She connected me with Ashish
Ippili.
Ashish is one of the IT gurus at Thames. Over the years he
has helped me many times with my IT struggles. Using the soft, patient tones
that one imagines doctors use with particularly dim patients, he would explain
what I had done wrong and how I could correct the data-loss/firewall
breach/server crash (delete as appropriate). Seriously, I was that incompetent
that people used to question whether I should be allowed scissors.
Anyway, hero that he is, Ashish solved my problem and, within
a few short hours I was back in business. 145 meetings were safely reinstated in
my calendar. It was only then that I realised what I had done. I had been given
the perfect excuse for clearing my diary and I had squandered it.
Think of all those meetings I could have readily avoided, using the honest
excuse that my calendar had been wiped!
I miss Ashish. Every business should have an Ashish.
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