with apologies to Dr. Seuss
Every Worker
Down in Work-ville
Liked UC a lot.
But Mr. Telco
Who had a corner office in the telco tower
Did NOT.
Mr. Telco hated UC. The whole UC stack.
It was easy to tell he wanted the good old TDM days back.
It was caused by his head being screwed on not right
It is that his thinking was constrained a little too tight.
And I think the most likely reason of all
Is that the market growth for their legacy products was two sizes too small.
But
Whatever the reason
Nostalgia or balance sheet blues
He looked down from his tower hating to lose.
Staring down from his office with a sour, upset frown
At the ongoing collaboration happening all around town.
For he knew every worker down in Work-ville below
Was busy IMing and chatting and not using their desk phones while on the go.
"And they're sharing their desktops," he snarled with a sneer
"They are working effectively without the PSTN here."
Then he growled, with his pudgy fingers nervously drumming:
"I MUST find a way to keep UC from coming!"
For soon he knew
All the young girls and boys
Would enter the workforce and bring their own UC toys.
And then! Oh, the toys. Oh, the toys, toys, toys, toys!
Then the workers young and old would work as they roamed
And they would get things done with nary a desk phone.
And they’d Lync and they’d Skype and they’d use presence too
They’d start with IM and escalate different modalities through.
Not using a desk phone, the PSTN or licensed ports
Which was something that caused Mr. Telco a knot in his shorts.
And then
They’d do something he liked least of all
Every worker down in Work-ville, the tall and the small
Would connect together without desk phone bells ringing
They'd use federation to connect organizations without PSTNing.
They'd work and they'd work
And they'd work, work, work.
And the more Mr. Telco thought of the Workers using UC
The more Mr. Telco thought "I must stop this calamity!
Why, for many years I have ruled the communication markets now
I must stop UC from coming!
But how?" Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
Mr. Telco
Got a wonderful, awful idea!
"I know just what to do!" Mr. Telco laughed, his face turning ruddy,
And he made a quick whitepaper and a case study.
And he chuckled and he clucked, "What a great Telco trick"
"With these documents, I seem to be telling the truth and laying it on thick."
"All I need is a sidekick..."
Mr. Telco looked around.
And since followers were aplenty there were many to be found.
And he chose a follower and told him his lies
Had him put on a suit jacket and picked out some ties.
THEN
He loaded some bags
And gathered his slides
Packed up the case study copies
And arranged SUV limo rides.
Mr. Telco said "Let’s go"
And they took the elevator down
Towards the offices in Work-ville
Towards the unsuspecting town.
He walked in their boardroom. A rather nice spot.
If analysts could do it, then so could he, Mr. Telco thought.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two
Then he shook his head and said something he knew was not true.
He left his sidekick rambling on, giving the spiel
Excusing himself from the boardroom, saying he needed to close a deal.
Where the workers usually sat at desks in a row
"These UC headsets" he grinned "are the first things to go."
Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant
Around the whole office and he took every device using presence.
Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo laptops of every type
MacBooks, iPads, Surfaces, Android tablets,
Anything that could run Lync or Skype.
And he stuffed them in bags. Then Mr. Telco very dastardly
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, into his SUV.
Grabbing the network router and into the bag he started to shove
When he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove
He turned around fast, and he saw a young lass
Cindy-Lou, an intern, who finished top of her class.
Mr. Telco had been caught by this young worker daughter
Who'd stepped out of the meeting for a glass of cold water.
She stared at Mr. Telco then said "Mr. Telco why? Why are you taking our UC tools? Why?"
But, you know Mr. Telco was so smart and so slick
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!
"Why my little worker person," Mr. Telco lied
"The QoS on your network isn’t properly applied.
So I'm taking the router back to the factory my dear
I'll fix it up there. Then I'll bring it back here."
And his fib fooled the worker. An evil smile quickly fleeting
As he saw her walk away and back to her seating.
And when Cindy-Lou was safely back in her chair
He shoved the router in his bag along with her iPad Air.
Then the last thing he took
Off all of the tables
Was the RJ45 network cables.
Then he exited the office himself, the old liar
On their desks he left nothing but the desk phones and RJ11 wire.
The one length of network cable
That was left there at all
Was too short to connect from a desk to the wall.
Then
He did the same thing
At each Work-ville office in all.
Leaving only the desk phones
As devices for making a call.
Thirty stories up to in his office
He waited, his heart thumping,
Placed a call to "Got Junk" and said he had some items for dumping.
"Pooh-pooh to the Workers," he was fiendishly humming
"They're finding out now that no UC is coming!
They’re just getting out of the meeting and it is true."
Now the Workers in Work-ville will use the desk phones he knew.
"That’s a sight", grinned Mr. Telco
"That I simply will love!"
So he paused. And Mr. Telco looked down from above.
And he did see a sight in the distance far below
He peered in the windows and looked to and fro.
But the work did not stop
Things kept working all right
And they were not using their desk phones
Or looking at their MWI light.
He stared down at Work-ville
Mr. Telco popped his eyes
Then he shook--
What he saw was a shocking surprise.
Every Worker in Work-ville., the tall and the small
Were collaborating using mobile smartphones one and all.
He HADN’T stopped UC from coming
It came
On their mobile phones, it came just the same.
And Mr. Telco, with his feet in his shiny black shoes
Stood wondering how it was that legacy voice desk phones could lose.
UC came without laptops. UC came without tablets there.
UC came without a LAN network or cables anywhere.
And he puzzled several moments ‘till his puzzler was sore.
Then Mr. Telco thought of something he hadn’t before!
"Maybe UC" he thought "isn’t always only a threat.
Maybe supporting UC could help get our business objectives met."
And what happened then
Well...in Work-ville they say
That Mr. Telco's creativity
Grew three sizes that day.
And now that his outlook wasn’t so near-sighted
He returned with the tech tools, hoping his wrong to be righted.
And he brought back the laptops! The headsets and the tablets!
The cables, the printers, even the printer ink!
And he...
HE HIMSELF...
! Mr. Telco clicked to start a conference using Lync.
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