Wednesday 31st

I arrive at work to find a message waiting for me on my desk. "Please call the IT Director as soon as you get in." I interpret this to mean as soon as I've had my first cup of coffee, so I visit the drinks machine. Mistake. The IT Director is waiting there.
"Ah, Billy. Thought I might find you here. I shall want to see you in my office this afternoon at 2 o'clock. There are some very serious matters that we need to discuss."

Alarm bells ring in my head. 'Very serious matters' does not sound good to me. I return to my office and call the Personnel Manager's secretary, disguising my voice.
"Good morning, this is the Facilities Supervisor here. Could I come and see the Personnel Manager at 2 o'clock this afternoon to review the new pay scales for my staff?"
"I'll check her diary... I'm sorry, she has a meeting with the IT Director all afternoon, how about tomorrow?"

I hang up. Thought as much. If Personnel are involved then this is looking very serious indeed. Seriously serious. Time to get out my program that searches all the mailboxes on the server and forwards to me the e-mails containing a specified string. I configure it to search for my name and then let it run. I go for a coffee and come back. It's still running, so I go for another. This time it's finished. My hands tremble slightly as I press the keys to read the results.

There's a whole stack of memos to the IT Director about me: unauthorised use of the company credit card... wasting the time of accounts staff... failing to declare hospitality received... unauthorised accessing of databases... interference in operational procedures... improper sending of e-mails from other peoples' accounts... use of company stationery for unauthorised purposes... irregular trading in the company's shares. Whew! I breathe a sigh of relief. It could have been a whole lot worse. Still it's bad enough I suppose. My eyes move involuntarily to the drawer where I have secreted the ticket to Rio I bought on Monday. I think about Brazil and the warm nights, the football on the beach, the dusky maidens, the coffee!

I check my watch. 10 o'clock. That gives me less than four hours. Well, if I'm going to go, I'll do it in style. The last thing the Operations Manager was working on, before I um, that is, before his unfortunate health problem, was a new disaster recovery plan. Unfortunately I don't think disaster recovery plans are designed to recover from disasters like me.

First I decide to deal with the backlog of Help Desk calls. I locate the back-up copy of the call database that I made three years ago when I first started work here and restore it over the top of the live one. Next I go to the store room and dig out my heritage disk collection. Years ago I figured that if old 45's could become valuable collectors' items then so could floppy disks. So I kept a set of the earliest system disks that I used: DOS 2.0 and Windows 1.03. I copy these to the network and schedule them for automatic download to all PCs. That should generate some nostalgia.

The phone rings.
"Billy, when are you going to finish my report?"
"Two o'clock this afternoon."
"Really? OK, I'll be expecting it."

I replace the receiver and immediately it rings again.
"Billy, when are we going to get the latest version of our database installed on the network. It's needed urgently for -"
"This afternoon. Two o'clock."

I check my packet analyser file and pick up the password of the IT Help account. I log in and set up an automatic reply saying, "Kiss my ass."

The telephone rings again.
"Billy, when -"
"Two o'clock this afternoon, OK?"

I log into my own account and set an automatic reply that says, "I'll do that this afternoon." Next I retrieve the file containing all the memos I found on the system two weeks ago containing the word 'sex'. I attach them all together and send them out as a broadcast e-mail to all users. Finally I grab the airline tickets and make for the door. The boss catches me with three yards to go.

"Billy, I have to talk to you about some complaints I've received recently."
"Sorry, I'm just off to a meeting and I really must fly. Can it wait until this afternoon?"
"OK, this afternoon, two o'clock."
"Fine."

I take one last look round and bid a silent farewell to everyone. Such a nice bunch of people. I'll miss them. Somehow I don't suppose it will be mutual though.