Twenty Four Seven
“Why is it,” I found myself asking as I waited patiently for four pints of beer to arrive, “that everyone involved with Petrollica has either run away to Ireland to learn basket weaving or quit the country never to return?” It’s a question which has kept me awake at night for years, begging for an answer. Despite many beers with many ex-Bwain engineers over the last forty eight months, no reasonable answer has yet been forthcoming. I’ve heard many theories, including one that proposed Reg had perfected a porcine aircraft carrier, for which Petrollica were contracted to supply the fuel, but an outbreak of foot and mouth in the hanger bay soon put paid to that plan. Another theory suggested that Reg had become involved in an international smuggling cartel, importing specially trained monkey pilots from Latin America to fly the pigs, but it all fell apart because he let the monkeys watch too many racy wildlife documentaries, which resulted in a gang of badly corrupt primates, quite prepared to mount anything with a pulse, especially the pigs.
Two beers, a round of cocktails and a pair of shooters later, Bleep was ready to talk.
“Did you know,” he said, taking a break from chain smoking ciggies, sparking up a stubby evil-smelling cigarillo, “it was Ronnie Large who founded Bwain?”
“Never!” I said, taking a matching stubby and sparking it up. “I assumed it was sly old Reg, he was the mover and shaker.”
Over the next few drinks my friend filled me in on how Bwain came to be. Whilst Reg was a foxy salesman par excellence, it turned out he wasn’t the man with the money. He used to make ends meet working in the city, selling insurance schedules for thoroughbred pets to the wives of executives with too much money and too little sense, until one day he got wind of a brilliant sales opportunity from a mate who knew someone who knew someone. Rather than spending the rest of his life shifting medical repayment plans for pampered high-end ponies, he smooth talked his brother Ronnie into trading him a directorship – some might say ‘dictatorship’ for a share in a deal which he claimed would set them both up for life. Whilst many firms were jumping on the latest technology bandwagon known as facsimile, or fax for short, there were still three businesses that refused to accept a fax as legally binding evidence in court. Banks, shipping companies and anyone involved with petrochemicals simply weren’t having fax, they demanded good old telex instead.
Between the pair of them, Ronnie & Reg bought up a one man and his dog outfit that specialised in computerised Telex systems, rebranding the product line as ‘Telex Exec’. Reg fulfilled his part of the bargain by borrowing a copy of the contacts database from Medi-pet, paying special attention to shipping tycoons and finance moguls, whilst Ronnie called on his legal expertise to put the frighteners on their newly discovered client base. The plan truly came together with the hiring of office space at a prestigious London address and the launch of the new range of Telex Exec solutions.
Very soon Bwain cornered the market with their secure computerised Telex system; they couldn’t get product out the door fast enough. Within six months the business had expanded tenfold and Ronnie and Reg were well on their way to making their first mint.
“You remember the Bwain Support File?” asked Bleep.
“The master list of who’s got what, made purposefully unintelligible to the uninitiated.”
“It came about because Reg wouldn’t stop selling product for long enough for Development to catch up with Sales. They developed a version of Telex Exec that worked with two telex devices, so Reg sold a client four. They worked day and night on the four port version, and as soon as they finished Ronnie scared someone into needing eight. It was the classic shifting goalposts manoeuvre, and after six months we were all frackin’ knackered from working ‘til stupid o’clock every night. Then came Petrollica, a full-on petroleum dealer, who asked for twenty-four telex lines, all working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
“Twenty-four seven three six five? I’ve had firsthand experience of that particular product, there’s no way I would ever trust it as a mission critical component.”
“Listen to you, with your smart new business speak!” laughed my friend. “It sounds like you’ve recently eaten a management consultant.”
As expected, Reg took no notice of Development, who said 24 lines couldn’t be done, curtly dismissed Babyface’s reservations with a deft wave of his hand and went right ahead and sold Petrollica the most advanced version ever of a theoretical product, along with a bulk order of PCs, several file-servers and all the network cabling. All in all, it was the single biggest order that Bwain had ever seen. Suddenly, Banks all over the continent sat upright and started paying serious attention. Reg could be seen out to dinner in restaurants where only the rich and famous dwell and for a while he became a minor celebrity in the banking fraternity, but no matter how much he talked himself and his products up, no matter how scary Ronnie’s horror stories became, no-one was prepared to place an order for a comparable system until Petrollica was fully commissioned with all the bugs ironed out.
The Ferret Files 
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