Nicholas Bate

Today At Totally, Totally Global

Hemel Hempstead has been having a hard time. After redundancy, despite preparing hard he has not had a single interview for a job so has decided to do an MBA. This he enjoys. Instead of constant rejections and non-returned calls and  nobody being interested in him, everybody loves him and is offering him places. As long as he has the money of course. He’s decided a language would be good especially Spanish so is intending to do an international MBA in Spain. The University of Santa Siesta-Manana-Tapas appears to be an ideal choice as he believes he needs to become a social media expert. Siesta-Manana-Tapas is believed to be unique in doing away with all tutorials, lectures and delivering all teaching remotely using Twitter. The campus is being sold  to provide funds for research into the shortening of attention span amongst students. 

Flinnn has had a bad couple of weeks. Since the capitalisation of Apple exceeded that of Microsoft he realised he was no longer supporting an underdog. No longer partaking in an on-going 'David and Goliath' scenario. He would need to find a new cult to join. This was essential to his personal creativity DNA. Even better he was going to start his own business empire: leap-frog the increasingly stale and predictable work of Apple. But what to do? He was thinking of doing an MBA and somebody had mentioned the totally off the wall-even no wall- campus and lecture-free University Of  Santa Siesta-Manana-Tapas. He like the sound of that. Might boost his twitter followers too.

Tom Widewolff was unhappy. British suits were becoming increasingly expense. And this hot weather wasn't helping. No real man has ever been caught wearing linen shorts.

Sally was still busy with the fall-out from the ash crisis. These submissions for expenses were incredible. If they would apply the same creativity to their work, TotTotGlo might not be 5% under-performing. And she still needed a boy-friend. Maybe she should go back to college; meet a nice boy? Maybe even do an MBA? Somewhere abroad perhaps? Her Spanish wasn't bad.

Random back-story here.

Today At Totally, Totally Global

Tom’s decided to launch a new initiative to ‘fire up the troops’. During his weekly massage he came up with ‘Totally, Totally Global: Total Passion, Total Reach, Total Act’ which he felt covered most eventualities until he could think of some content. MarComms are working on his conference logo: a pair of traditional London Carnaby Street taylor’s scissors poised above the globe.

Flinnn has had three interviews, sadly none with his beloved Apple despite iPoach’s claims of inside access. And he’s irritated by the consistently incorrect feed-back he’s getting that he has insufficient experience. What’s that got to do with it? He’s super cool, for goodness sake.

Sally was really disappointed with Valentine’s day. An assortment of cards, chocolates and teddies. Just where are the real men that will chase her with pure desire and lust and ravish her body for the sex goddess she surely is?

Hemel Hempstead is working his network and realising that despite what the book Personal Branding for a World of No More Work Ever said it isn’t that easy. He’s currently in Starbucks with a Grande Calm tea reading Why HR Departments Never Reply To You.

Today At Totally, Totally Global Inc.

Sally is back. Nobody dares ask her where she has been the last couple of business days as she is then unlikely to help them with the economy to business class up-grade work-around for trans-Atlantic flights. She had an epiphany this morning in her local Starbucks on discovering that her zero-cal, syrup and milk free ambient-temperature super-short latte was actually called a doppio espresso and is delighted with its zen-like simplicity.  So much so she has decided to go super-simple for everything. Consumerism is out. Boyfriends are out. And clubbing, too. At least until the week-end. Or maybe just Thursday.

Hemel Hempstead has an interview. He's wondering what to wear so has ordered from Amazon:

1. Clothes Maketh The Man. 
2. What Manicured Nails Reveal About You.
3. The Perfect Salary Negotiation Haircut.

Tom is at his tailor discussing suitable weights of cloth for his new spring suit.

Flinnn is trying to get through to his consultant at iPoach.  He keeps getting his voice-mail but simply cannot understand it:

"Hi This is Tony  Zone of iPoach, the unique organisation uniquely dedicated to locating the best and most transparently unique professionals for the best company on the planet dedicated to bursting the marketing envelope. I'm sorry I'm not here in full atom-to-atom flow at the moment but leave a voice imprint and I'll be back with you imminently" 

Flinnn replaced the receiver; if only Life ran as smoothly as his Iphone.  He held its comforting curves as he looked out across the TotTotGlo Campus. 

Some incoherent back story here.

Today At Totally, Totally, Global WorldWide Inc.

Flinnn is in early. His semi-dry, half-soya, pre-buffed, extra-hot venti mocha tastes good. And he had a great week-end. Sunday evening he spoke to a cool consultant at iPoach which specialises in getting marketeers jobs at Apple who said that his CV was 'certainly within the bandwidth of capability parameters his client was currently seeking' which sounded promising. So Life seems good again. So now he's writing some copy for their new product release. As he's decided to do the campaign via one single 'power tweet' it shouldn't take him too long to find the words. Then he's off to see his therapist about his Apple addiction; he's timed it so he can get some time in the Apple Store before and after the session.

Tom's got his Monday morning Hot Stones Therapy Massage. He's musing on a re-branding exercise of the company name to TotTotGlo.

Nobody knows where Sally is.

Hemel Hempstead is still in shock after his Friday redundancy and frustrated he didn't complete his slide-deck. Over the week-end he bought himself a stack of books to help re-enter the job market:

1. Please And Thank-You: The Power Rapport Builders.
   
2. How To Get a Job When There is No Vacancy.
3. What The Dinosaurs Teach Us About The Job Market.
4. Just Say Maybe.

Today At Totally, Totally Global Worldwide Inc.

It's the Quarterly Review Meeting of the LATEx (Latin America and Expats) region. The 0830 meeting has finally started at 0947 because Hemel Hempstead (Sales Director) arrived late as his  budget didn't allow him to travel the night before. He has to leave at 1411 to get the return flight from Little Windy, the out-of-town budget airport 97km away.

Tom's worry list has not reduced. And now as he looks around the room he has further concerns. Flinnn (yes, that is three n's) doesn't seem to be able to communicate without turning a laptop and running through four or five slides nor mentioning how Apple might have approached it better. Tom's also wondering how quickly he can find something with which to fire Hemel as incompetence never seems to be enough these days.  His Blackberry buzzed. Good, good. His new CD by young band The Drums had been shipped by Amazon.

Even Hemel was daunted by the size of his slide-deck as he was only 42% of the way through it. He was particularly concerned by the lack of questions as he suspected that was because either those in the room were in deep trace or everybody knew would they would never see him again, so why start a conversation when it would not be finished? He should have remained a school-teacher. At least there you could generally see the knives coming for you.

Tom turned and dispensed another perfect doppio espresso. Thankfully there still a few small perfections in Life. The Drums too: the perfect pop song. Oh, and his new tailor. These cuffs were perfect.

Flinnn was in a foul mood. He should have been back-stage with the iPad launch. He wanted to work for a company where-as he expressed it- 'shades of grey were a full colour palette'. And his CV still looked very weak. He was wondering whether he should do an MBA? Trouble was he'd heard they were quite hard to do and he'd hated anything hard after giving up the guitar. Who wants to make music with a wooden instrument anyway? Not good for trees.

Sally is very frustrated. Not only is Hemel's presentation so fuc**ng boring she's been out to the rest room five times and simply cannot get away with that ruse again but www.We'llGetYouThePerfectBoyfriendIn10DaysOrYourMoneyBack.com have really let her down. The ones that have texted so far seem to have great abs-or so the photos suggest anyway- but no personality.  She did have a texting conversation with one who seemed nice but he admitted he'd lied about his physique to meet great girls. I mean. What? How shallow is that?

Tom Looked at his U-Boat watch for the third time in as many minutes. He'd give it seven more then he'd fire Hemel. Then they could get an early lunch and start the weekend knowing his costs had gone down significantly. Just 6 more minutes. Great coffee. He whistled Let's Go Surfing (awesome track)  sotto voce.

Today At Totally, Totally Global WorldWide Inc.

Tom Widewolf is in early. As newly appointed VP of Sales of the LATEx region (Latin America and expat nations) he has a hit list he's worried about:

1. margin too low on sales
2. T&E too high already into quarter
3. early feed-back on new products not good

He hit go on his espresso machine.

Sally is in early, too although she has not let her boss Tom know; she needs a few minutes of 'her-time'. She got rid of her boy-friend over the week-end and is jotting down what she is looking for in her new one:

1. great abs
2. excellent wealth potential (she really wants an apartment in the new BOhemAN quarter)
3. knows how to use a washing machine
4. good dress sense

She wondered whether those were the correct priority order before she went on-line.

Flinnn (yes, three 'n's) is one of the marketing guys. He's in early because his campaign is crumbling around his ears. If only he could get that job with Apple then life would be better. He jotted down his personal attributes before he pulled together a new CV:

1. 54329 followers on twitter

It did look a little weak at the moment.