From Spanning the gulf ...

.. to New Horizons.

It is fair to say that, with hindsight, today demonstrated the child like approach Dante's Senior Daemons have towards their clients. Current ones are like old toys and are only played with under duress. They are soon chucked in the back of the toy cupboard and forgotten when a trip to the Toy Shop looks likely.

Tuesday's mission was to complete the "bridge". Basically this is a multi-tabbed, brightly coloured spreadsheet that presents the costs of the two iterations of my project, the costs that are actually being incurred delivering the current service and attempts to explain any differences in terms of new client requirements ...

... or fuck ups that we made, intentionally or unintentionally, when we delivered a price to delight in November last year.  That low price did the trick and client decided to proceed with Dante's Nine Circles of Hell as their sole supplier of choice but now the Hell is attempting to explain, or preferably remove, any cost increases.

The day went well and by early afternoon I had imported new sets of costs and added the additional scope from yesterday's flash of genius stroke of luck. With the careful application of smoke and mirrors my numbers were starting to look quite good indeed. Difficult discussions would still need to be had with the client but there is enough wriggle room for some "if you buy that we will also include this" type conversations.

Late in the afternoon I found time for a walk with T&M before returning and wrapping up with the EMEA Sales Exec as he is about to take time off and it will be over two weeks before we are both back in work. To be honest there is not a lot to do in that time and his final email, late in the day, diminished the amount of work even further ...

... it now looks like this deal will be tidied up and put in ice until the client is ready to sign. No major reviews are to happen until that point so all I have to do is get my bridge approved by the Account and Sector Execs and ensure that the SMIs all have their appropriate ticks in boxes. 

The reason for this sudden change in approach; a Senior Sales Director is calling out a significant number of deals about to come in and basically he doesn't want to waste time and resources on this pile of shite. I am now wondering what I will end up with when this pipeline starts to flow.

Away from work Chippy Ian called round this evening to give us a Professional opinion on the leak/damp situation. He thinks my conclusion is reasonable and that we should start with capping the vent pipe and then waiting to see if things start to dry out ...

... looks like my shopping list now includes a Dehumidifier.