The soap opera for the IT channel
Grant has been cured of his 'goodness', Janine Cropper and
detective constable Mark Dennis have plans, Dennis Doors and Jeff
Coulter are talking to cyborgs. And if you're wondering about Roger
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Roger Callard and Harry Bleeker-Hoare settled down into their
seats. Harry loved these industry affairs, especially when the
vendors spent a healthy amount of money on them. To Harry that
meant a classy meal, free-flowing wine at the table and an
unlimited bar.
Others liked to gauge an event's prestige on the status of the
entertainer/guest speaker booked for the proceedings, but Harry's
classification system didn't care if it was the sales manager of
Sellyourgranny Computers or a top class comedian (sometimes, in
Harry's eyes, they were one and the same) doing the talking, so
long as the bar didn't close until his eyes did. And it stayed
free.
And although he wouldn't admit it to Roger, who Harry always felt
was a little bit of a stuffed shirt about these kinds of things, he
always liked to round the evening off with a bit of a small-scale
ruck, which was why he always insisted on bringing Dan from the
warehouse. One thing he had learned was it was always useful to
have someone handy with their fists - and their feet - at the end
of the night.
Tonight's festivities, the Sellyourgranny Computers channel awards,
were seasoned with an undertone of potential violence, especially
as the seat planners had put Callard Computers next to one of their
bitterest rivals, Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems. Although they had
initially been on good terms, the atmosphere had soured after
Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems stole one of Callard Computers' largest
accounts amid allegations of skulduggery and downright
cheating.
The sense of impending violence was sharpened by the knowledge that
both had been shortlisted for the Sellyourgranny Computers'
corporate reseller of the year award. As far as Harry could work
out, the main criteria for shortlisting appeared to be to have sold
a system, any Sellyourgranny label system, to a corporate customer
in the past year.
Added to all of these factors was the sickening discovery that the
tables were limited to half a bottle of wine per person and there
was no free bar. While understandable given Sellyourgranny
Computers' precarious financial position, Harry felt an almost
poisonous rage towards the company. Resellers had helped build up
the vendor in the UK, the least it could do was give them a bloody
good party.
All of these things were swimming around in Harry's brain in a
melting pot of resentment, anger and disappointment. Anyone could
see it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. So when the
sales director of Sellyourgranny Computers, Mark Smarm, announced
Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems had won the Corporate reseller of the year
award, something snapped in Harry. Before he knew what he was
doing, he was at the Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems table.
"Cheats," he hissed, before picking up one of their bottles of wine
and taking a healthy swig.
Afterwards, when the hotel damages bill had pushed Sellyourgranny
Computers into receivership and it emerged in the administrator's
report that Mark Smarm had given a series of supply deals to
Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems for no other reason than his girlfriend's
father owned the reseller, many would praise Harry and the Callard
Computers staff.
As for Harry, while everyone else had been throwing punches,
glasses, chairs and award statuettes, he had been sneaking around
all the tables, stealing as many wine bottles as he could.
Thus it was that while the attendees straggled homewards like the
remnants of a defeated army once the police restored order, Harry
and the Callard Computers staff had a party - in the
warehouse.
Will Mark Smarm's girlfriend dump him for another vendor's sales
director? Can Callard Computers win back customers from
Sloe-in-the-Wold Systems? Don't miss next week's At the
margins.