Next morning, as Lester continued his clandestine work on the plan to collect from the Adelaide development, AJ in Audit picked up the threads of the previous day's planning discussion with his boss Alf Rosen.
"There are two areas of our work we ought to regard as first priority," he started out.
"Now, hang on, Alf," Rosen interrupted, "last night we had four first priorities, and that was too much. You're in overload, and you know it. You're going to have to make up your mind which ONE project to put your energy into, otherwise you'll get nowhere!"
"Agreed!" claimed James, leaving Rosen nonplussed long enough to regain the initiative in the discussion.
"I've got one first priority," he continued in the ensuing silence, "and I'm giving you one as well. I can't do much more with the idea of our getting rid of computer program security. I've written up a paper on the problem, options and preferred solution to the best of my ability - it should be typed by now - and I'm going to give that whole subject back to you."
Rosen stayed quiet, and he continued.
"We ought to be having more to do with New Project Evaluation, but I accept that isn't a life-or- death thing. So we'll leave that for a while. "We'll defer the requirements for more staff for a while, too.
"Now, my first priority is to make a career crossroads for the people within EDP Audit. With a couple of exceptions, the present team members would prefer temporary audit positions. You come in with specialist skills, stay two years or so, then you move out to the original - or a different - career stream, but with additional skills and a better management perspective. As well as all the other advantages we talked about, it almost removes our training costs. I want to go ahead with that, full steam, as my top priority."
"Have you decided where you want to draw the skills from - what specialties are you going to need?" Rosen queried.
"I've decided on as broad a market as possible. Internal Audit doesn't have a perfect image, as you'd be the first to acknowledge, so I think we should be prepared to talk to any computer professional who's interested. What I'm saying is we don't know how selective we can afford to be at this stage. That man Bayliss in Systems Programming, for example, has no Accounting background but he’s proved he’d be an ideal acquisition: you don't suppose I could have an unofficial yarn with him?"
Rosen thought about it for a moment. "I don't suppose that would do a lot of harm. Why don't you circularise the Section Managers in Information Systems for expressions of interest first, perhaps through Mr. Wragg, so he doesn't feel sidelined? The Security program bothers me, though. Are you saying you've stopped work on it?"
"No," James disclaimed, "just that I don't have the resources to get it any better than it is. The subject needs two people full-time: one to administer the present, and the other to improve on it. You remember I said our backup security is a mess. There's nothing wrong with the rules, once I found the policy. Real problem is nobody follows the rules; I doubt if most people in Operations and the Tape Library even know the rules."
"Sounds to me as though you have stopped work on Security, and I suspect you shouldn't. Agreed you can't do everything perfectly, but it seems you've got enough material to write a sober reminder to the DP Manager."
"Oh, OK, straight after Christmas."
"Why not now, Alf?" Rosen pressed him.
“‘Tis the week before Christmas," James parodied, " and all through the place, not a person is worried, not even of us! I think it'll work better after Christmas, boss. Gimme a break."
Rosen agreed to a break, and broke up the discussion, round about the time Lester made his fourth trip of the week into Accounting out at Mulgrave. He was working through a series of trumped-up enquiries about the special reconciliations over the Christmas break, hoping in the process to collect copies of the forms he needed for his big withdrawal.
He'd been able to lift a payment authorisation form in one office yesterday. It was just dumb luck the top form on the pad had been started, so he took the bottom one from the wad. He had it back at his desk when he noticed the serial number on it, and wondered how long it would take to discover one was missing. Maybe a lot later, since it was from the bottom of the pad, he concluded with satisfaction, especially just before the Christmas shutdown.
It was that fourth trip, though, before he spotted a pile of batch totaling forms, while he was waiting outside someone's office. He strolled towards them, but the man terminated his phone call and invited him in, ruining the opportunity for the moment. However, ten minutes later, his trifling query adequately dealt with, he left with thanks. This time, he walked away through the desks and was able to lift a couple of the forms unobtrusively as he passed.
The big question now was how to use those forms. Monday would probably be his last chance to "doctor" a batch of payment requests with an extra one from the Adelaide account for himself. Whatever had not been entered by Monday night would wait until after the Christmas break, and his plan would be in jeopardy. He worked hard at keeping his nerves under control, but felt the tension in his gut growing steadily as the size of the opportunity seemed to diminish.
He only had one work day left, if he wanted to break away at Christmas. On the other hand, while everybody complained vigorously, that access ban remained in place, and there were no rumours about its being lifted. That woman Helen was probably tickled pink, but everyone else was bitching and moaning over unfamiliar workloads.
The bitching and moaning didn't seem to have any effect on the ban, though. He couldn't get into Operations, whether or not he wanted to alter batch totals. He'd tried - tried the most plausible stories he could dream up, but was referred back to unsympathetic supervisors every time. One night he stayed late, but there was still a "caretaker" staff at 10.30 when he finally gave up, so after-hours wasn't going to work either.
Paul Towner had worked last weekend, on a Sales Analysis program that had to be in place for January, and the story was the same there. The buggers had laid on a special staff just for him - a shift supervisor in Ops, and the standby tape librarian.
Making clerical changes in the Ops area seemed to be the only way, though. The lunch discussion with Helen had effectively ruled out Plan A. It wouldn't work, because a couple of days at least after the altered cheque was mailed out to him, some messenger would be thumping on a counter somewhere for it. The missing cheque would force them back to the base records. Then they'd do a full check through the payment sequence and come up with all his manufactured new company details. The Police would be waiting somewhere very close to his Oakleigh mailbox, and the fat would be in the fire. So Plan A wouldn't work. Then, at the moment, the access ban effectively ruled out any chance of his spoiling that computer tape so Plan B was gone. His last chance was the Adelaide account, by adding a new payment authority to a current batch, or it just wasn't going to happen in December. Feeling suddenly tired and discouraged, he recalled he might need that holiday after all. Maybe next year?
Lunch with a couple of Systems people didn't dispel Lester’s growing gloom. They were mostly planning to "bum around" the local beaches, waiting for the potential call-back, as long as they weren't actually on duty. He should have been on top of the world over the iron-clad prospect of the New Zealand trip, but the shroud of growing depression seemed to cling wetly to his temperament. He couldn't even talk with authority about the details of New Zealand, he mused, because Annette was doing all the organising. It all seemed a bit unreal. What had these cheery people to be chirpy about, he wondered sourly?
Feeling a strange kind of relief from the tension of acting a part, he settled down at his terminal after lunch to do some research on Fred's most recent task allocation from the Problem Desk. He'd like to clear this one out today, he recalled, because it was his turn on the Problem Desk next week - just for a few days, to prevent his getting involved in another “stinker”. Unless the Christmas spirit took over all of Consolidated's staff, next week would be hell. Most likely, the Christmas spirit would generate a flood of senseless, impossible, unfounded complaints from distracted intending holidaymakers.
He couldn't think of anything else constructive to do on any of the subtraction plans. The next step had to be inside Operations, and the next chance he had of making any progress there might, just might, be on Monday morning ahead of his solid desk duty.