Fall Out - Sandra 3

[For back story see lower numbers]

It was not the message that was the problem, thought Sandra, it was the media. The whole damn media. 

She had already broken her lockdown ration on the coffee machine for the day and was desperately seeking support from the less desirable versions of caffeine hits that the pods offered. Despite this and the ginger biscuits nothing was delivering the sense that the pressure was easing off.

The virtual hugs were great. They were fine. They were the absolute bees’ knees and the thing everyone wanted. Trouble is they were the thing everyone wanted. The world and his wife had suddenly discovered the potential of a recorded conference call, piece to camera or video blog and the airwaves were positively teeming with them. Across cyberspace there was a positive racket of A/V noise and while on the one hand Sandra’s clientele were up for it, she knew they would have to deliver something different to make a difference.

Branding them ‘the virtual hug’ was a smart move. Tipping two industry suppliers into one space for such a hug was fabulous – and only three suggestions had been met with a incredulous silence from the other end and the need to rearrange. Otherwise companies who had been competitors in the old world now recognised they could use each other to get a better reach across the new one.

The last valuable coffee went cold as Sandra went from mobile phone call to email to online chat. Having spoken to Clive, an old school marketeer, guiding him slowly and carefully through the required settings for the conversation to work, she concurrently WhatsApp’d with Trinny, a lively and friendly colleague from way back in school who was trying to get an app company up and running in what was essentially their ideal environment. Unfortunately Trinny spoke in abbreviations and emojis which even Sandra was having difficulty to decipher and swaying from this to Clive was doing her head in somewhat.

Then, just as she thought she’d sorted it with Clive, Clive gave up and put on his colleague and great friend – a ‘young man’ called Edward who was probably only five years his junior and who required a full briefing before starting to type tentatively on the computer in front of him. At the same time a FaceTime call came through on her phone from Xcet Corporation, a new potential business client.

Sandra took the call on audio only, believing she could successfully mute Clive and Edward at the appropriate time. She did, however, fore-warn them explaining that this may mean she wouldn’t answer questions that quickly. Both Clive and Edward were fine with this, explaining it wasn’t like they were responding quickly to what she was asking them to do anyway.

“Can you see our screen, yet?” Asked Edward, hopefully. But hope was all there was emblazoned across Sandra X Dedbury’s screen. Hope and potential. At least that was something to work with.

“We saw your ad on LinkedIn,” said a fresh voice from Xcet, causing Sandra to wrack her brains as to what exactly her ad on LinkedIn had said. “You claim to offer ‘a fresh approach and new ideas in this unforgiving landscape’,” said the voice, helpfully reminding her.

“Yes,” said Sandra, “That’s correct – and you are?”

“Davy, Amanda Davy,” said the voice. “I’m from –”

“Xcet Corporation,” filled in Sandra congratulating herself on her phone system and memory. “Leaders in online training and development, I believe. What can you do for me? Sorry – I do for you?”

– Are you certain you can’t see the screen? Asked Edward again in a chat box.

– Grin with hearts emoji, fart emoji, thunders and lighting, said Trinny.

Sandra sent three question marks and seven exclamation marks to Trinny and a sad emoji to the others. Then she thought again and wrote “No” instead followed by instructions to do three more things.

“Well,” said Amanda, “I’m pretty certain we’d like a fresh approach and new ideas, please. And given you know who we are, I’m suspecting you’ve already got a few lined up?”

This was absolutely not the ideal time for Sandra to launch into her own (extended) elevator pitch –

– We can’t find the volume adjust you mentioned, is it somewhere else, maybe?

– Fireworks (twice), waving hand, sad face with tear

– No it’s where I said

– Edward says what version of Chrome do we need?

“Is there any particular campaign or message you’re looking at putting out there?”

Sandra’s second, home phone went off. Again she knew the number and fleetingly she wondered if she could do this one as well.

And she answered the phone straight off, pleasingly conducting her hands to mute and hold everyone else.

“Hey, Sis, what’s up? How’s that hunk of a man of yours?”

There was a time when the sisters had been in competition for Rob and they still enjoyed the friction that existed over him.

“They put him into ICU this morning,” said Frankie.

The world suddenly lurched downwards and the screens blurred. When they swam back into focus Sandra found Trinny had posted a line of smiley poos.