lemon garden

One of my responsibilities at work is administering our intranet. Amongst my many other tasks, I add the weather forecast for today and tonight to the staff page - the forecast is pilfered from the BBC, but don’t tell anyone.

One day last week, the evening forecast was mysteriously missing. So I made up a forecast myself and uploaded it. I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone actually read the thing. My forecast went like this:

Tuesday night: A dark cold and windswept night. Overhead, a waxing moon will glimmer between the tattered clouds and, during the darkest hours of the night, a wolf will raise its lonely cry over Starbeck.

In case you don’t know, Starbeck is a nearby village. I thought it would be nice to add in a little local touch.

Well, this turned out to be the single most popular thing that we in IT have ever done! I was inundated with people complimenting the new improved forecast. So I carried on. Each day adding in my own special forecast for the evening.

Then, on Friday morning, I was sorely lacking in inspiration. You know what Friday mornings are like. So I just stuck up the normal forecast. Wow, was that a mistake. I found myself accosted by outraged solicitors in the corridor demanding to know where my weather forecast had gone.

Every day we labour to ensure the network runs smoothly; that our servers continue to deliver all those crucial systems (such as the payroll, for example). Do we get any thanks? No. But one silly weather forecast and every one is in raptures.

They’re a strange bunch, human beings.