I recently finished watching the new television series, Grimm. The lead character in the adventure discovers that he is a descendent of the Brothers Grimm. This led me to reread the Brothers Grimm fairytales and inevitably, I came across Mother Holly again. To cut a long fairy tale short, a widow’s stepdaughter ends up working for the devilish Mother Holly. However the quality of her work is so great that Mother Holly ends up sending her back to the ‘real’ world covered in gold. When the widow discovers this treasure, she sends her biological daughter to Mother Holly hoping for more gold. Unfortunately she is not as diligent as her stepsister and ends up being sent back home covered in coal.

In my position at SYSPRO USA, I am given the opportunity to meet with Enterprise Resource Planning prospects, channel partners and customers. I have found that some have perfect experiences choosing and implementing an ERP system, while others find themselves overwhelmed and frustrated with the process. Reflecting on each company’s unique experiences reminded me of my own similar experience of furniture shopping.

The other week my family banished me to the attic with instructions to get rid of all the stuff I had put up there "that might be useful one day." I soon found myself sitting amidst piles of cardboard boxes reminiscing about school days and my early career in the computer industry. I even found my old beer mat collection from the '70s!

As memories came flooding back about my first job on a support desk it struck me just how much more sophisticated systems have become. I also found myself pondering how difficult it must be working on a support desk nowadays and also just how important a good support desk is to someone trying to implement and run a system.