CHANNEL TALK - PC SQUEALER

Man overboard

What do you get if you cross a bunch of leery salesmen, a million gallons of booze and a boat? Aye, Aye Captain, it's Comdef time again and PC Squealer is simply beside itself at the prospect of a load of seafaring channel chappies chundering over the side of a trawler. But fear not, as John Alexander, head of corporate recovery and insolvency at Pannell Kerr Foster, has a surefire way of beating sea sickness. This involves standing at the bow of the boat while the vehicle is in full motion with the wind beating you in the face at full pelt. Maybe this is where James Cameron, director of Titanic, got the inspiration for the magical and in no way nauseating scene in which Kate Winslet stands at the front of the boat held in place by sex machine Leonardo Di Caprio. Can't you just imagine John with the spray in his face and the wind up his skirt? Hold that thought.

Sayonara sushi

For years now, any company with a marketing machine has been dying to tell you about it's 'global strategy' and its 'global customers'. Yawn.

But it looks like the biggest, bluest company in the land, IBM, has put its money where it's mouth is by hiring its very own Japanese expert for when you need to know your soy sauce from your saki. Yet PC Squealer was rather perturbed to hear of a recent incident when a meeting was scheduled between some Japanese customers and some IBM chaps. Unfortunately, the Big Blue delegate was unable to make the meeting so a female IBMer said she would be only too pleased to fill in, only to be informed by the Japanese expert that it isn't the done thing to conduct a meeting with a woman.

So much for all those years of burning bras.

All along the watchtower

PC Squealer was recently told an interesting story about one of the biggest nobs (senior people) in the channel. This chap was, and still is by the sounds of it, so fastidious about his job of being in charge of a load of sales people that he used to employ a type of guard to help him check up an all his lowly staff. So, by day this 'guard' would be employed as a normal techie support chap but at night he would mutate into what can only be described a monster who would check the time and quantity of calls all the sales people were making. Now, PC Squealer has no idea how many nervous breakdowns occurred at this company but at least everyone was kept on their toes.

Days of yore

Watch out, Wembley, the lunatics are taking over the asylum and according to York Inward Investment Board, they mean business. Apparently, these big loons are going to descend on the Telebusiness 98 conference in an attempt to beef up York's call centre investment. And with this marketing ploy how can they possibly fail? Andy Garner, one of the big cheeses who works on York's call centre development team, said: 'Our strongest card is that staff stick.

Hence the Vikings - when they discovered York in 900 AD, they settled.' The Vikings also raped and pillaged but PC Squealer doubts York Inward Investment Board will go that far for a few new telephones.

Cyber-sex on the beach

All you men out there who are used to reading sloppy romantic novels on the beach while your wife or girlfriend tucks into something a bit more worthwhile like The Prince by Machiavelli will recognise the 'author' Danielle Steel. If not, our Danni writes interesting little titbits like: 'He took her firmly in his arms and kissed her with a passion she had never known, making her whimper like a small canary,' or something like that. However, the flames of romance look set to falter as Danielle recently married Thomas J Perkins, who not only inspired her latest book but was also a helping founder of Compaq and Tandem among others. Bloody computers - is there nowhere you can hide?

Money talks

It's fair to say that the name of the game in the channel is to live fast, die young and make loads of money in the meantime. But this lesson seems to have passed Rob Howes, MD of Innovative Software, by as he recently gave up his #60, 000 plus job as a sales type at Alcatel to promote his new software sales tool. What on earth is the world coming to? Strangely enough, PC Squealer wasn't given his new salary but you've got to admire Rob's ambition - giving up oodles of money for the love of a bit of technology. But then again, a cynical person might say, wake up and smell the coffee pal.

Talk about a close call

PC Squealer was last week trying to track down Horizon Open Systems.

However, we were surprised when after ringing the number, we got the message: 'Do you want to experience the best phone sex ever? If so, just press 69 now.' After PC Squealer tried the phone number a few more times - for research purposes only - we finally realised we had failed to put 0181 in front of Horizon's number - hence the saucy message. So in true investigative style, we made our excuses with the phone line and decided to ring the proper number instead. We had a far more interesting time - honest.

Laptop dancing

Staff morale is always a problem. Whether it is management problems or the press running unreliable, made-up stories (not us guv - Ed) it is always the staff that are the worse off. Which is why it is important to run team bonding days out. However, it must be said that perhaps Pro IV has taken it too far. When in Vegas recently, the software developer decided a boys' night should be an evening of booze, fun, laughs and strippers.

Unfortunately, maybe the boys bonded with the strippers instead of their team mates. Cold showers all round lads.