Have a good one
Mart
From: Martin Lukes
To: Katherine Lukes
Hi Katherine
It was great to see you last night after all this time. You haven’t changed a bit. Once I got used to your new hairdo I could see you are just the same little sis! Obviously there’s a bit more of you than there used to be, but then I’m spreading out a bit myself!
It was good of you to spend so much of the evening chatting to Jake. Most adults have difficulty in seeing the positive side of him. Not sure you should have been encouraging him with the mary jane though!!
Great that you got on so well with Pandora. Did I ever tell you that it was she who suggested that I make contact with you, as she said you’d benefit from closure with me? Hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of telling her that you had just come out of a long-term relationship, and that she might be able to help you work through some issues on rejection. I’ve found her very useful on matters personal.
Actually, it was very weird for me meeting her, as until last night I had never clapped eyes on her. I’ve been e-mailing her all my innermost thoughts for the past year so there’s very little about yours truly that she doesn’t know intimately!!!! I couldn’t get over her appearance—I was expecting her to be petite and forceful and sexy. So you can imagine how shocked I was at the reality!
Have a terrific Crimble. Let’s meet up in the new year a deux to have a natter about old times.
Cheers, Martin
From: Martin Lukes
To: Phyllis Lukes
Dearest Mum
Sorry you couldn’t make it to the party. It was a huge success. Weird seeing Katherine after all this time. At first I didn’t recognize her at all. She’s aged a lot and put on weight. The red spiky hair is a mistake.
It was also very odd meeting Pandora. She’s hugely fat and was wearing a pink shell suit, and kept on nipping out onto the loggia for a fag. It’s very hard to believe that she was ever a ballerina … She was all over Katherine, and the two of them shared a cab home afterwards. The thought occurred to me that she may be inclined that way too. Which would make a lot of sense. I suppose neither of them, for different reasons, ever met the right man.
Jake and Katherine really bonded, and as I said to Jens afterwards, there are a lot of similarities between them. Both of them have lived in the shadow of brilliant siblings, which has definitely left scars. K’s asked Jake to go and stay in Brighton in the New Year at her place and experience some of the counterculture there, which was nice of her.
As for Max, his new religious jag is really getting to me. He stood on the sidelines looking disapproving as we all got merry. Drinking is what Crimble is all about. I’ll drive down and pick you up tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to a lovely family Christmas xx
Your loving son
Martie
DECEMBER 27
From: Martin Lukes
To: Graham Wallace
Hi Graham
How was yours?? Ours pretty good, though Jens feeling sick and very bad tempered. Jake and I went for a long Boxing Day walk, and although he’s still monosyllabic I think relations between us are improving. Max spent most of the morning at church, and the afternoon doling out soup in some hostel. And mum was happy as Jens let her cook the turkey. Slight friction when Mum said Jens should stop work and 43 was an unnatural age to have a baby. I could see where she was coming from, but it wasn’t exactly tactful.
Still I was allowed back into the marital bed—though no hanky-panky as yet due to the nausea. Jens gave me the South Beach Diet for Crimble, and I’ve said I’ll start in the New Year. I think it allows me to drink but only red wine. Pint of Guinness in an hour?
Martin
PS Did you read in the papers over Christmas that it looks like BSM may get locked up for some time? Serves him right.
DECEMBER 31
From: Roger Wright
To: All Staff
Re: Staff changes
Martin Lukes is to become Director of Special Projects and Strategy, effective immediately. This is a main board position, reporting to myself. Martin will be in charge of a broad range of projects and will work closely with other directors and members of staff. He will continue to be responsible for our right-shoring project. I wish him every success in his new role.
Thelma Dowd has been appointed his assistant.
Roger Wright
Chairman
From: Pandora@CoachworX!
To: Martin Lukes
Hi Martin
This is the last day of Executive Bronze and the last day of our journey. I have said many words to you over the year, and I have only two left.
Martin, I want to say: Thank you. Thank you for making the journey. Thank you for growing. It’s been an incredible year. Thank you for sharing it with me. You have come a long, long way and I now can officially declare you to be 22.5 percent better than your best! As your Number One fan I would like to say:
Martin, keep striving and keep thriving!
Pandora
From: Martin Lukes
To: All Staff
Dear friends, co-colleagues, mentors and mentees,
After some gut-wrenching soul searching with family and friends, I have come to an important decision re my career at a-b glöbâl. Over the holiday season I have pondered whether to pursue some exceedingly interesting opportunities in the “outside world,” or whether to stay here at a-b glöbâl.
You will have seen from Roger’s announcement what my decision has been. However, I’m sure that you will all be curious about the thinking that went into this decision, and so I have decided to share it with you.
I’m staying because I’ve been given the freedom to be the creovative™ genius I aspire to be
I’m staying because the people I work with are uniquely talented
I’m staying because I never have to say, “can I be frank?” I just always am
I’m staying because I continuously want to see “what’s around the corner”
I’m staying because I think we can make this company a better place to work, and I want to be part of that
I’m staying for these reasons and many more. But, most importantly, I’m staying because when I meet someone on an airplane or at a dinner party and they ask me what I do for a living, I’m extremely proud to tell them that I am a Director of a-b glöbâl.
All my very bestest
Martin Lukes
From: Cindy Czarnikow
To: All Staff
Hi everyone!
Wow! Thank you Martin for your honesty in sharing something so personal with us. I know that many hundreds of a-b glöbâl employees will be so grateful to you for expressing—so eloquently—exactly what each of them was feeling.
Next year is going to be a great one for all of us. I can just feel it.
I’m smiling at all of you
Cindy
From: Martin Lukes
To: Graham Wallace
Meet you downstairs now. I’ve got a raging thirst. M
From: Martin Lukes
To: Thelma Dowd
Hi Thelma
What’s this urgent message from Sebastian Fforbes Hever? Did he say what he wanted?
Martin
From: Martin Lukes
To: Thelma Dowd
Off for a drink with Graham. Happy New Year. Have a good one.
If Sebastian calls back, I’ve got my mobile, pager and BlackBerry with me.
Martin
Authors’ Acknowledgments
At the end of the day, a book is basically all about teamwork. Who Moved My BlackBerry? was no exception.
First up, we would like to celebrate the contribution of Jasper McMahon, who brainstormed, thought outside the box, and sweated the small stuff. Kathryn Davies and Sathnam Sanghera had many key inputs to bring to the party, as did Edward Lucas.
Juliet Annan and Clare Alexander gave 120 percent all the way.
&nb
sp; And above all, sincerest gratitude to my coach, friend, and mentor, Michael Skapinker, for his unstinting creovative assistance each week for my column in the Financial Times. Credit is also due to Richard Lambert, who had the guts and vision to see that FT readers would be interested in the weekly antics of one Martin Lukes! It is no exaggeration to say we could not have done this without any of you. Cheers.
Last but not least, we would like to thank our loving better halves, Jenny Withers and David Goodhart, who helped by reading the chapters, and for being there for us 24/7. Thanks to our children, Jake, Max, Rosie, Maud, Arthur, and Stan, for sharing in the tears and the laughter and for pushing the envelope until it almost fell off the table.
MARTIN LUKES AND LUCY KELLAWAY
Pandora’s Acknowledgments
I would like to celebrate the work of my friends and mentors from the coaching community who have taught me so much, and whose teachings I have passed on to Martin and to many coaches down the years.
Above all I would like to mention Steve Covey, whose funeral exercise is one of the most profoundly moving and revealing lessons of all. I would also like to thank David Taylor, Laura Berman Fortgang, Paul McKenna, Pam Richardson, Antony Robbins, and Arielle Essex for the inspiration I have garnered from you and your books. I have learned more about life from you than you will ever know.
About the Author
Lucy Kellaway is a regular columnist at the Financial Times of London. She created the character Martin Lukes in that column, the Financial Times’ most popular.
Praise for
WHO MOVED MY BLACKBERRY?
“Few people are as well-equipped as business columnist Lucy Kellaway to write a novel that pokes fun at the corporate world.”
—Daily Telegraph (London)
“It matches the very best in satire. If there’s one book every ambitious manager should read, it’s this one.”
—Evening Standard (London)
“This novel is a pitch-perfect satire of corporate life in the 21st century.”
—Guardian (London)
“This book should become an instant classic. It will certainly sit on my shelf of business blockbusters.”
—Financial Times Magazine (London)
“Blissfully funny, hideously sharp, a comic tour-de-force.”
—Craig Brown, BBC
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Lucy Kellaway
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this book as follows:
Kellaway, Lucy.
Who moved my BlackBerry? / by Lucy Kellaway.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-4013-0251-3
1. Office politics—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6111.E49W48 2006
823′.92—dc22
2005044780
FIRST TRADE PAPERBACK EDITION
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 978-1-401-38423-4
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