I’d landed my first job interview with a company called Management Planning Systems—MPS for short. Their website, mpsys.co.za, revealed they were agents for an American firm, Sciforma, which produced a project management software called PS8. It had evolved from the DOS era to Windows, competing directly with Microsoft Project. But their real focus was PSNext, a complete Java rewrite designed for the internet. MPS needed someone to sell it, and I needed a job.
Their offices were in a sleek Bryanston office park. Inside, it was all polished surfaces and quiet efficiency: Francois Retief, the owner, in his corner office; his wife Anne-Marie; a sharp young programmer named Ian; and Linda, the office manager and secretary. The interview was straightforward—questions, answers, and then, out of nowhere, an IQ test. I completed it, and the next day, Francois called with an offer: 30,000 rand a month (about 20,000 after tax), plus a generous commission structure. The software came with a 25% annual maintenance fee, so the incentives were real. I said yes.
My first day consisted of sitting in Francois’ office with a laptop loaded with PSNext. “Get acquainted,” he said. By the next day, we were in front of a potential client.
PSNext wasn’t some shrink-wrapped CD for home users. This was enterprise-level stuff—banks, corporations, government RFPs. But MPS already had a foothold. Over the past 15 years, Francois had built a solid client base with Project Scheduler, the Windows predecessor to PSNext. His story was classic Francois: during apartheid and sanctions, he’d somehow gotten his hands on a bootleg copy of PS6, realized it was superior to anything he could code himself, and started smuggling it into South Africa via Botswana. When democracy arrived in the mid-’90s, he flew to Sciforma’s headquarters in Los Gatos, California, and secured the official agency. By then, he’d already sold a ton of it—especially to Pretoria’s arms industry. Companies like Denel and Atlas Aircraft, born from South Africa’s border wars, loved Project Scheduler. It was better than Microsoft Project, and they knew it.
MPS ran their client relationships through Maximizer, a CRM system. Using my old skills from the Fishy Pete’s email club, I exported every contact, fired off a bulk email offering PSNext demos, and discovered something: I was damn good at selling this software. My first sales were upgrades from PS8, but soon I was landing new clients. Francois, 15 years my senior with a dry, dark sense of humour, became a mentor. For the first time in a while, things were actually going well.
Well, except for the money. I was still drowning in debt. Linda, the office manager—a warm, no-nonsense woman about 15 years older than me—noticed my stress. One day, she slid a brochure across my desk: First National Bank’s One Account. It let you consolidate debt into a second mortgage. I’d bought the Bez Valley property for $180,000; the bank reassessed it at $400,000. Just like that, my credit card nightmare vanished into a single, manageable payment. Game-changer.
Then the letter arrived.
Not from a creditor. From my sister, Briony.
By this stage, my mom was in Macadamia Village, an old-age home in White River. Briony had gone through her notebooks, tallied up every loan she’d ever given Niels and me, and—with advice from God knows who—sent a letter of demand. I was stunned. Here I was, barely back on my feet, supporting three kids, an ex-wife, and a new wife, and Briony—who’d contributed nothing to anyone—was coming for me.
I called Niels. “There’s something I’ve never told you,” I said. “When Dad left me $750,000 in that Luxembourg account, he never intended for you or Briony to get a cent. He thought you’d both had enough. The finrand in South Africa was supposed to be yours. But I split it three ways. And now she’s suing me.”
Niels paused. “That makes sense,” he said. “Dad always thought I was set up. And you… well, you were the only one who ever gave a shit.”
We both wrote her letters. The gist: Fuck off.
I was furious. Briony had lived a life of entitled non-contribution, and now, because John Bredenkamp—the man she’d sued for child support—had cut her off when Matthew turned 18, she was panicking. She’d had $250,000 from me in 1991, money she didn’t even know existed because I’d never told her. And now she wanted more?
She backed down after our letters. But not before she moved Mom from White River to a luxury old-age home in Sandton. I visited every Saturday when I had the kids, or alone when I didn’t. Mom’s dementia had worsened—she wasn’t conversational anymore, just fading. I knew Briony was paying a fortune for the place, so I told her about Mom’s two diamond rings: a 6.5-carat and a 4-carat flawless. The second was mine in the will, but I said, “Sell them. Consider it my contribution.”
It didn’t last. Briony stopped paying, and Niels moved Mom back to White River. Tish and I visited monthly. Niels would bring crème caramel—Mom’s favourite—and we’d sit with her, watching her slip further away.