Instead of a title imagine me shrugging ...

Today was a reasonably paced day at work. I had enough to get on with but nothing that needed doing urgently. So I settled down at the desk and made a start; flitting between activities and calls at a leisurely pace. All was going swimmingly until the three o'clock call ...

... After the frenetic activities of the week before last Victor had given me a few days to catch my breath and was now thinking of the next steps. Our prospective new client is a little imprecise on the timelines for this courtship* and there is a fairly strong possibility of us being called in to deliver a presentation at some point during the last two weeks of this month. Let's pause and take stock of that statement ...

... at some point between the 18th and 29th June (that is ten working days) there is a reasonable possibility that an unknown number of employees from Dante's Nine Circles of Hell will be invited to an unknown location ** and be asked to deliver a presentation of an unknown duration on a subject yet to be specified. The more observant amongst you will notice that the word "unknown" appeared a couple of times there. Now I fully understand why Victor wants us to be as prepared as possible and it is a reasonable supposition that our Presentation will be about the range of services we would propose to provide so that has converted one of the "unknowns" to a "probable" but we still don't know when, for how long and how many of us idiots they are prepared to provide tea and biscuits for.

As a result we are knocking up some generic material that can be honed and polished*** once we get our invitation. My problem is that I have been given four slides to draft describing a solution that doesn't exit yet - I kid you not. So far this prospective client has given us some scant information about their operations and asked a huge amount about our capabilities. They have been incredibly light on actual requirements and scope. I am therefore tasked with making some generic nonsense look like I have read their minds and have supreme insight that will solve all their woes...

There is then a reasonable possibility of me having to present and then take questions. Hmmm?

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* Having said that I have seen far, far worse
** Highly likely to be near Basingstoke
*** the polishing sequence goes; 1) Turd, 2) Sow's Ear, 3) Silk Purse ****
**** 1 and 2 are common enough. 3 is as rare as Rocking Horse shit, which interestingly takes us back to 1.