Niall took a few moments to pack away his stuff at the end of the meeting. He was feeling a little disorientated, and he knew it was his own fault. He’d tuned out of Simon’s presentation pretty early on, and had spent most of the meeting sorting out his emails. He suspected that he wasn’t the only one. He tried vaguely to remember what the key points of the presentation had been. Something about planning out a process…mappings? As is? To be? He couldn’t understand why none of it had seemed to sink in. He sighed.
Simon was deep in conversation with Tony. Niall signalled ‘goodbye’ as he left the room, and mouthed ‘Thanks, Simon’. He received a gracious wave in return.
In the corridor, Jenny was waiting for him.
“Niall.” She sounded anxious. “Have you got a minute?”
“Can we walk and talk? I need to get back to the office. We’re processing timetabling requests for next year.”
Jenny made a sympathetic gesture. “How’re you getting on with actually getting them in?”
“Oh well. You know. Not that many people have met the deadline.”
“Tell me about it. I’m still waiting for a massive course specification from Marine Engineering, with I don’t know how many routes and options, and the panel is in two weeks.” She sighed. “I don’t think they realise how much work we have to do to actually get their documents into shape.”
They continued silently for a couple of steps.
Niall broke the silence. “Anyway, Jenny, that probably wasn’t what you wanted to talk to me about, was it? Was it about the records system?”
“Oh. Yes.” She paused for a moment. “The thing is.” She stopped again. “The thing is, Niall, I didn’t understand anything about what’s going on. I don’t think I should be on that group. I feel so stupid. I thought we were going to look at what the manufacturers have got available, and then pick a system that has the features we need.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Isn’t that it?” Niall wondered if he’d been more tuned out than he’d realised.
“I don’t think so.” Jenny stopped for a moment and opened her notebook, which she’d been carrying in her hand. “Look at my notes.”
Niall took the book from her. The page was filled with what looked like scraps of text. Overleaf were a couple of half-finished diagrams which seemed to have been partially copied from the screen. Simon had skipped through his slides fairly quickly.
Taken as a whole, there was no sense to it at all. On the other hand, it was a pretty accurate reflection of his own impressions of the meeting.
He shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not really sure what today was meant to achieve. It was just a kick-off, wasn’t it? Maybe we’ll get to grips with it at the next meeting.” He handed the notebook back.
“What about our homework?”
“Homework?”
“That’s what Simon called it. Weren’t you listening?”
Niall shrugged again. “I might have tuned out for a while.”
“He said we needed to…” Jenny opened the notebook and read from one of the pages. “To go back and consult with colleagues, and make a top two list of the integrations in the as-is system that we couldn’t live without.” She looked at Niall. “What’s an integration? What’s the as-is system?”
Niall glanced at his watch. “Look, Jenny, I really need to get back. I don’t know what he wants us to do either. I’m sure it will all get clarified. Shall we just wait for the meeting notes to be circulated, and then work from there?”
Jenny didn’t reply.
Niall waited for a moment, then gave a little wave and strode off.
Jenny was still standing in the atrium, clutching her notebook. She bit her lip. She’d been so pleased to be invited onto this working group; it should have been great for her CV to contribute to an important project like this, and now it was obvious she was totally out of her depth. She would never be worthy of progression to a more senior role. She set off slowly back to the office.
Back in the Student Spot, Niall ambled into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He felt a twinge of guilt. Why hadn’t he made it obvious to Jenny that he was also completely confused about Simon’s working group? Maybe that wasn’t just because he’d been doing other things during the meeting. Maybe the whole thing was a case of Emperor’s New Clothes? Had everyone been sitting there wondering what the hell was going on, apart from Simon and Tony? Should someone say something before the whole project got any more bogged down in their worldview?
Just then, one of Niall’s team burst into the kitchen area. “Thank goodness you’re back, we were starting to panic!”
Niall raised an eyebrow. “Timetabling emergency?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
Niall turned towards the kettle to hide his face. “I couldn’t think what else would be causing you such concern. OK, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Anna scuttled out. Niall filled his mug. He was still smiling. Timetabling emergency. As if. Honestly, his team couldn’t manage half an hour without him.
By the time he’d walked out into the main office, he’d forgotten all about Jenny, Simon, and the new student records system.
I have very bad feelings about this project. Can anyone help? wadingtreacle@gmail.com if you can!
Wading through Treacle 