September 16, 1992, was not a good day to be overly enthusiastic about your job
- Reference: 1652690594
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/05/16/who_me/
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Our hero, Regomized as "Mike", was working as a "data entry operative" for a tourism company in 1992. The company ran bus tours to the then brand-new EuroDisney, parent company of [2]Disneyland Paris (now the most visited theme park in Europe), which had opened earlier that year.
Mike was an eager beaver, his youthful naivete having convinced him that if he worked extra hard, came in extra early, and kept the in-tray clear, then his efforts would be both noticed and rewarded with promotion and a bump in pay.
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But back to 1992. It was a significant year for other reasons not theme-park-related.
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Mike got in early on [6]September 16, 1992 , as he did any other day, and got busy processing the tours, which required entry into the system. And goodness, there were a lot of orders. They were then printed out onto contracts (legally binding, we imagine) and were then faxed off to the tour companies who would deal with getting the over-excited customers their slice of mouse-based magic.
[7]An international incident or just some finger trouble at the console?
[8]A discounting disaster averted at the expense of one's own employment
[9]In IT, no good deed ever goes unpunished
[10]An early crack at network management with an unfortunate logfile
"On the contracts was the rate of exchange for the ticket and ferry price," Mike recalled.
This is an important detail. Remember that date? September 16?
In his enthusiasm, Mike had processed 16 tours before the manager burst into the office and began frantically ripping contracts out of the fax machine.
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"The exchange rate had collapsed," he told us, "and my early bird antics cost them over 40k."
"*Poof* went the business."
For those too young to remember, September 16, 1992, became known as "Black Wednesday" and marks the day the British government was forced to pull the country's currency from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. While the aftershocks of this event have continued to reverberate, one immediate effect was a dramatic and sudden change in currency exchange rates.
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"Everyone had to leave," he recalled. Although he was offered an extra £1,500 ($1,800) a year to return ("which wasn't much of a quality of life increase at all – but 1,500 to my young mind seemed awesome"), Matt ended up being picked up by the IT company that had created the systems for the travel agency.
"But they eventually accused me of stealing the bike they loaned me to get the seven miles to work every day," he added.
That, however, is another story.
Ever brought down a business by sheer enthusiasm? Or found your best efforts undone by forces far beyond your control? Tell us, with an email to [13]Who, Me? ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Who,%20Me?/
[2] https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-usd/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YoIgxgvXJUkAo5NsHjLBHwAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/02/28/the-pound-dollar-plot/109af669-9dd0-4eef-aedf-b261205a5af3/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/09/who_me/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/02/who_me/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/who_me/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/18/who_me/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YoIgxgvXJUkAo5NsHjLBHwAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YoIgxgvXJUkAo5NsHjLBHwAAAI0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] mailto:whome@theregister.com
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "Everyone had to leave" knee-jerk reaction
They obviously had not heard of hedging, pretty basic stuff in their line of business, what with them agreeing to buy/sell stuff in the future in foreign currencies. Bit like all those energy companies that could offer lower prices (mostly by the saving you get when you don't hedge like a pro)
Re: "Everyone had to leave" knee-jerk reaction
Hedging wasn't relevant while the Pound was in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, which kept fluctuations very small. The problem was caused by the Pound dropping from the ERM (aka proto-euro).
Apart from that, I'm not sure hedging is available for relatively small transactions like they were doing. But definitely an option when you're building an oil refinery.
A Dutch colleague mentioned that they'd concluded a contract with a UK customer the week before Black Wednesday, fortunately for them the contract was in guilders (remember those?).
Regomiser a bit confused?
Was it “Mike” or Matt?
Re: Regomiser a bit confused?
Matt Black - Wednesday
Re: Regomiser a bit confused?
A fault with the Regomiser? Best gloss over that, else you could be treading on eggshell.
Re: Regomiser a bit confused?
Matt - 'satin his real name?
Re: Regomiser a bit confused?
Door mat ? (As green horns are sometimes treated)
I've started it but it won't stop.
What the cause of the problem getting to see Mucky Mouse? The Source was the Apprentice.
The work is its own reward ;)
> if he worked extra hard, came in extra early, and kept the in-tray clear, then his efforts would be both noticed and rewarded with promotion and a bump in pay.
Noticed, definitely. Rewarded? Why
In the real world t'management identify people like this and instantly know that they are far too valuable to promote away from their existing job function.
Re: The work is its own reward ;)
True, but once you've occupied that space for a certain length of time it can be amazing what you can get a company to do to ensure you stay there.
One large company I worked for ended up allowing me to move my workplace to another country rather than accept my resignation. My entire team was made redundant, and the company was caught in a nasty situation where my name was also on that list, but they found they couldn't let me go. Then there was the time they sent around a stack of company policy documents, saying that it was mandatory to sign them. Two of the four were a whole load of bollocks about how the company treated staff well, stuff like how they paid at least industry rate on all roles when they quite measurably didn't. I refused to sign them. After a bit of wrangling they decided to turn the other cheek, which was fine by me.
In short, it became very apparent that they'd carved out one large exception and it had my name on it.
Not the exchange rate, but the unit used
A trading system I was working on to integrate with our internal systems was connected to the London Stock Exchange. In testing everything was just dandy.
In production a *small* glitch occurred - it received prices in GBX (Pence) and though they were in GBP (Pounds). Critically, the balance validation worked correctly, seeing GBX prices as it should, but when trades were collected or paid, it had already passed that step so just blindly transferred a sum that was 100 times more than it should have been. If you've ever dealt with unhappy stock market traders, you might guess how miserable they made everyone for a while. As bad as it was, with got off not too badly, but in the order manager system team some heads ended up rolling.
my early bird antics cost them over 40k
No, I think you'll find that chancellor Norman Lamont's antics cost them the money, and unless Mike had been instructed to continually monitor the exchange rate (and why should he when the £ was still in the ERM, until later on that day when it wasn't any more) he should be absolved of all blame here.
Re: my early bird antics cost them over 40k
Agree, Mike was guilty of absolutely nothing here.
Re: my early bird antics cost them over 40k
ITYF it's usually the lowliest who gets the role of scapegoat. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it.
Re: my early bird antics cost them over 40k
When you look at how the GBP moved against the FFR during [1]September 1992 the change on Black Wednesday wasn't really that much. 9.45FFR - 9.01.
ISTM the greater damage done was by the company cancelling all those contracts, losing the revenue from them and destroying the trust of tour operators, who would have gone elsewhere after that.
Also, by September the schools would all have gone back. The major earning would have already finished (from trips during the summer). It sounds more likely that the company was already on the rocks and that this was just the final straw.
[1] https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england-spot/historical-spot-exchange-rates/gbp/GBP-to-FRF-1992
"Everyone had to leave" knee-jerk reaction
"Everyone had to leave," he recalled. Although he was offered an extra £1,500 ($1,800) a year to return
Never understood how or why this happens.
If a business can be affected by something like this in the short term then frankly it hasn't planned for jack shit. The fact that he was offered more money to return - when money was apparently the problem in the first place - highlights this as the absolute piss take that it is.
"Let's lay everyone off so we can ... save some money to save the business"
* Can't operate business. Can't generate revenue. *
* Business collapses *