Football unfocus

Sport Relief Mini-World Cup
Originally uploaded by The original SimonB

You can always tell when Ipswich Town are playing a home evening game. Large chunks of the office get up and leave early in order to go home, have a bite and get changed before coming back for the match. An equally large proportion stays late at their desks then goes straight over (the office is literally next door to the ground). This leaves the rest of us wondering what all the fuss is really about. Especially the way they have been playing recently.

With every result, hiring or firing of manager or players reported across the local media and discussed endlessly around me during the day I know far more about the workings of football than I ever thought I might pick up. While I may have watched the odd cup final or other game on the tv there is no way I could ever be described as a football fan, and yet I do seem to care about what goes on inside the stadium next door.

And good luck to the new manager as well - I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to take on a job like that. More to the point, I don't understand why it is always the manager that seems to get all the blame when things go badly, but the players who are praised when teams are winning. Surely they are both equally responsible either way?

I have been inside Portman Road on numerous occasions for meetings (it being a handy venue and all that) and also to see Bryan Adams back in 1992, but the only football I have been in to view was a charity tournament on the practice pitch. That's where the picture above comes from - a team from the office entered and did fairly well (but quite how well I can no longer recall).

I have tried to catch the bug properly in the past in order to fit in with friends, but it just doesn't grab me. Perhaps I need to go to a proper professional game but at those prices I'd rather take MrsB out to the theatre AND have a good meal as well.

So while I won't be joining those shivering in the stands tonight I will keep an eye out for the result later, if only so as not to put my foot in it when I get to work in the morning.

Park And Reflect

Park And Reflect
Originally uploaded by The original SimonB

Since I restarted this blogging malarky I've tried not to write about work too much. Not through any fear of people finding out, reprisals or whatever but simply because I think I did too much of that first time around and no-ne else is interested. You can read the archives if you really like.

But today I have to get stuff off my chest because I am not a happy bunny.

I've moved around within my team/department over the last 12 years and every time have had to bite my tongue about what the people who come after me have done to and with the legacy I left behind.

So, for example, highly praised timetable books have been dropped, maps are no longer geographically accurate, connecting routes don't meet up any more, newlsetters have been dropped, awards have not been re-won. It is hard to see things I put time and effort into disappear, especially when they have been well received in the real world and people still contact me rather than my successors in the hope of getting a straight answer.

Now we have a new Government slashing our budgets, and a major casualty is one of the three Park & Ride sites I did my best to build, run and develop. For a county committed to going green I can only see this as a short-sighted blow. Where other departments get "invest to save" money we just seem to lose out. I am sure a bit of decent marketing and genuine customer focus could do wonders, bring in more punters and cut the costs in the medium term, but it seems that is not an option.

But what annoys me most is reading about it in the local paper before being told internally. That really is not on.

If our bosses want us to stick with them through these troubled times then communications have to be sorted out and staff have to know before Joe public.

Too late for them to change their minds now, but I hope that future cuts and changes will be reflected on a bit more and those of us who actually care about getting things done can be kept a bit more in the loop.

Which way now?

Which way now?
Originally uploaded by The original SimonB

Been stuck in a rut of not knowing what to write about that would lift things since the last post's negativity, so here's another post that doesn't know where it is going either!