Keir Royale

I spent much of this afternoon as a refugee from an evacuated building, seeking a computer terminal on which to ply my trade.

I found one, and it was actually a lot faster than the one I normally use.

But in the process of wandering the streets of St Helier, wondering where I’d be likely to find a spare terminal, I started musing about business continuity - not something I’d ever considered, or even heard of, before starting this job.

And now I discover there’s an entire institute devoted to it.

There wasn’t much of it in evidence this afternoon - not in an organised way.
The difficulty was that we all thought we’d be shut out for about an hour, and as it was just before 1pm when the crisis hit, we all went off for lunch.
As instructed by the police.

But then when we returned to see the blue and white tape still fluttering in the substantial breeze, we found they were about to blow up a backpack.
Then they had to conduct a dogged search of the entire nine storey building.

And that took another hour or so.

There’s only so long you can spend in town, not spending money. So I decided to seek out an alternative office.

I wasn’t the only one who found refuge in a nearby government building, gratefully entering my name and password in an attempt to return to the normal working day, cursing the fact that the bits of paper littering my desk were not safely sheltering in my handbag.

But what of the majority of the 300 or so people sent out into the warm sun of St Helier?

I’m led to believe one resourceful department found their own form of business continuity in the nearby Adelphi.

While I spotted one employee returned to the office laden with suspicious looking bags. And I don’t mean they looked like they contained explosives. Not from the labels anyhow.

If I’d known in advance I could have booked a hair appointment, or half a day off, or I could have belatedly joined the National Postgraduate Committee’s attempt to Keep Wednesday Afternoons Free.

As it was, I formulated my own, small, Business Continuity plan.

And then I went home.

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