Confused

It is confusing how much work I'm suddenly having to do.

After months of quiet solitude and bimbling about with very little to do, things have suddenly come to a head and I'm dashing all over the country giving demos and having meetings. It's just not on.

Admittedly, none of these meetings seem particularly productive and we've just had a major foundation stone unceremoniously ripped out from under us, but I am still surprised at how much interest has suddenly been generated in our company and product. We do have a new freelance sales chap - which does explain a lot of it.

The physical new product (due end August) is still not here - mostly due to the fact we still have some outstanding issues with the supplier (which are a bit commercially sensitive).

So all in all, we seem to be steaming at full speed in ever descreasing circles and probably generating our own whirlpool in which to drown.

Anyway, this, and the fact I decided to embark on a programming project of my own which is rather far-fetched and foolish, but keeps me off the streets, is the reason for lack of posts and general activity in the past couple of weeks.

P.S. I still haven't seen the next episode of Fringe, but if and when I do, I shall be sure to report back

Big Business

It's been a strange week at MG Towers where I work (pictured).

I was going to do a story so far opening, but decided it would probably depress me too much so that I wouldn't finish the post, so you'll just have to go and look here and here.

We finally have some movement on our next batch of hardware (due end August) and it looks like it's about ready to ship. This has now been held up by a number of commercial issues mostly centred around a senior figure in the company doing b'all for the last 4 months and holding up all the financial transactions above about £1.37 in value. This has somewhat annoyed me (as you can probably tell) because I've been pestering and chasing our supplier to sort themselves out at get our order sorted out for about 2 months now. Nasty words have been exchanged - via me because there is never any response from aforementioned senior figure.

So that is pretty much buisness as usual for us.

The strange thing is that not only do we seem to be close to getting a partner to handle calls for us, but we also have another project which has suddenly revived itself (although, the rumblings are that it will all fall apart again), 2 out-of-the-blue enquiries which actually sound quite interesting and two forthcoming demos, one of which is to a major high street retailer considering a retail version of the system.

We've been here before, of course, when everything looked rosy and then nothing happened, but at least it's something. It's been so damned quiet (both in terms of the office itself and the buisness) for the past 6 months, it makes the Marie Celeste look like Spearmint Rhino on a Friday night. Also strange when everyone else appears just about ready to board up the doors and call it a day.

We also seem to have somehow managed to get ourselves back on some kind of moderately stable financial footing, at least for a while (also a bit of a mystery). I keep asking myself if it's really going to make a difference or just prolong the inevitable. I think I probably know the answer.

Close call

This time last week I was on holiday.

We were just about to do our last couple of dives, spend a day on shore and then fly back to old blighty on - guess which airline? Yes, Excel.

And today, they went into administration.

We had a rather close call since if our holiday was a week later, we'd be waiting to here about what replacement airline they'd lined up to ferry us home (I understand Iraq Air aren't too busy at the moment) and if we were two weeks later we'd be wondering how we were going to get there at all.

It was fairly obvious that Excel were struggling. They repeatedly reduced their service, by removing free food, putting in-flight prices us, charging stupid amounts of money for exit row seats and so on. But the budget airline model is quite a well trodden route and Excel did is so badly.

Their seating poilicy sucked - not only could you not pre-book seats, you couldn't even guarantee your party would sit next to each other - only "in proximity". Their baggage restrictions were rather draconian and set to get even worse, their seat pitch was dreadful, such that even I (with short, stumpy legs) found it difficult to get comfortable. The flight we were on also ran out of food - for which they were charging (a princely sum) thus immediately depriving them of one of their most lucrative revenue streams.

All in all, they just ran the business badly. They obviously felt they had to compete on cost and to hell with everything else. I don't quite understand this, as they were a tour operator themselves, not just a budget airline. They seemed to lack the basic marketing nouse that would tell them it's about the customer proposition, not just the cost. Poeple are very aware of their choices these days and, frankly, there are a lot of other people out there doing a far better job than Excel.

I'm sorry for those that are being inconvienenced by lack of return flights and those who stand to have their holiday plans ruined, but I won't be shedding many tears over the demise of this company.

You know things are bad when ...

You're offered a fat bribe just for staying with the company.

My visit to the pub ... err, sorry, meeting today all focused around looking after me. This, apparently, invovled promising me the Earth, letting me know in no uncertain terms that everything would be alright and giving me a bribe to not leave.

Admittedly, the bribe was only in shares - which are worthless anyway - but I do get the feeling that things have got one stage worse if my esteemed leaders are now so desperate that they have to try to hang onto me at all costs - even by doshing out some of their hitherto impossible-to-obtain shares.

Perhaps I should be motivated, flattered and enthusiastic about this move, but it just leaves me feeling like things are even worse than I thought, somehow. It serves as a graphic illustration of how incentives can sometimes work against you.

... Or maybe I'm twisted and cynical and nothing's ever good enough for me.

... Naaaaaaaaaa!