The Joys Of Failed Tech (AKA Extra Time To Read)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Now I have never said what my job is (and I won't, well not today anyway) but I've never hidden that it's not a glamorous one. However unglamorous though it is even my work is not immune to new technology in this digital superhighway world that we live in (though some of us, like me are happy to drive in the slow lane as lone as we get there in the end).

Yesterday (Thursday) new systems were meant to be installed in my workplace. I say "meant" as that didn't happen. The workplace was not operating for at least 1 hour before I arrived because some technical glitch. I couldn't do any work, neither could my manager as we watched a group of tech people try to figure out what hadn't happened, why it hadn't happened and then try to make what hadn't happen happen.

Now we all know that it's the super-nova-techie people who are slowly dominating the world. But once in a while it's fun to watch them in a panic.They have the tendency to huddle like meerkats trying to work out what to do and then disperse whilst chatting to someone else by mobile phone and headpieces. This is what happened yesterday. Tech departments were called, numbers/codes were being rattled out left right and centre and the screens showed all manner of It code pages and logins as they, in a mood best described as mild hysteria, tried to deal with the problem.

And eventually, it was half worked it out hoping that by today it will be fixed (that I'll find out later). The rest of the day things went back to normal (ie the old ...or is it current...system) was used. However they reached that stage after two hours. For two hours there was nothing to do. So I read, and finished a book.It was the one I borrowed from the library, A Big Pole In Our Goal. The autobiography of former Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek.

Let me first say that in terms of it's style this is no different from most sporting autobiographies you will ever read. That said it was an enjoyable read mainly because of the things that attracted me when I saw it in the first place. After all can't off the top of my head recall another book in English of a Polish footballer. So It gives us an insight not just to how he grew up but his experiences in Poland which was to me interesting. This was also the case when he discussed playing for Poland.

That, coupled with his reminisces on his life as a top class professional player, problems when travelling/living abroad (remember that for him "abroad" meant Britain as well),bits about working with players, and particularly managers in his career that I didn't realise and the simple fact that goalkeepers are different meant this was an amiable book by an amiable man. I would recommend it.

Not sure exactly when I'll be able to go the library next. It might be tomorrow it might be as late as next Friday. We shall see.

Until the next time.