After escaping the Underground the queasiness left me and my head cleared. I reached work about five minutes before the demonstration was due to start and, not having time to go to my office first, went instead to the toilets to comb my hair and straighten my tie before facing the audience waiting in the training room.
In the front row, smiling encouragingly, was Lizetta Williams. The partners were holding their quarterly meeting that day, and having them out of everyone's way in the board room made this a good time to bring together all the senior support staff. Two earlier demonstrations of the new software had been straightforward, but this time the moment I touched the keyboard an exclamation mark inside a bright yellow hexagon appeared on the screen. Beside it was the intimidating message in vivid red: Fatal Error! System Protocols Violated or Network Parameters Exceeded!
Some work on maintaining the system was regularly carried out after users had gone home, and the likely cause was that last night someone had interfered with the way the training room system was set up. Highly embarrassed I faced my audience: 'We seem to be having trouble with the network. I'm not sure how long it will take to put right. Would it be a good idea to have coffee now and, hopefully, resume when things are sorted out?'
Lizetta helped me out by organising coffee while I went off to find the two members of my staff who understood the training room system best. They put aside what they were doing immediately to investigate the problem, but could not agree on its cause. Half an hour later they were still arguing about where the fault lay. Everyone had booked the morning's session in their diary weeks ago, but there was no option other than to abandon it.
To try to salvage a little credibility I called them all together again and proposed giving a summary of the new system facilities with the aid of marker pens and a large whiteboard. They watched attentively as I reached into a cardboard box of about twenty pens, picked one up, and accidentally flicked the edge of the box as I lifted it out; the contents spilled out onto the floor and rolled everywhere, several pens coming to rest at Lizetta's feet. She helped me pick them up while the others looked on, their expressions varying from exasperation to suppressed amusement.
When we had gathered in the last of the pens she said gently: 'If I were you I'd call it a day and go home. Relax over the weekend and make a fresh start on Monday.'