24th May

The last set of new doors have been put on. There is still the Ironmongery to be put on some of them where new ones have new functions - different security access. I go around some of them with John and work out which ones need tightening/loosening to cater for the automatic closers and magnetic security locks.

We have engineers looking at the phone system. There are three different suppliers: Mitel, Cisco and TVIP. Each of them have been pointing fingers at each other for the problems we've been having. These include calls being made but not reaching their destination and simply bouncing around inside the system, and our automatic dialling system failing. This has been ongoing since March when we lost power to the server room and the boxes were brought down untidily. It took us a while to get the three of them together to look at he system and figure out what's happening.

They actually have some success. They notice that a spurious character is being generated between two of the systems and this affects how the calls are handled. They write a bit of code to strip out the intruder and this cures the symptoms. We still need the root problem flushed out but the indications are that the workround will get us out of the hole we're in.

I get a visit from the Essex County Council people who are responsible for the move of their people into the building. I give them a tour of the building and show them the facilities. They are very impressed with it and really like what they see. I get a round of applause after the tour - a hundred Tim's better than anything I got out of the people I work with.

In the afternoon we go through another session with Capital where we meet the Regional Manager and his team. We're gradually getting there.