MISFIT Black Friday


virus merchants were busy elsewhere. It was just old fashioned witchcraft that was causing all the trouble. The first intimation I had that anything was wrong was when the Misfit


I


Shoes system went down. We tried all the usual tricks, like switching off and on, doing control/alt/delete, and tapping bits lightly with the toe of my shoe, all to no avail. There was nothing for it but to phone Computer Bloke, who responded that he couldn’t get to us before Monday. Have you noticed these disasters always happen on a Friday and usually just before a public holiday? The last time we had any serious trouble was just before Christmas Eve two years ago. No panic. Everything was backed up, and I keep a lot of data on the


memory stick, flash drive or whatever it is called, I wear round my neck. Faithful Computer Bloke gave it me last year. It looks too tiny to hold all the data essential to our operations, but he assured me it had enough gigabytes or whatever, and told me to put certain essential files on to it every night, so now all I had to do was take it home and carry on working from there on Mrs. Misfit’s machine.


I told myself


that while it was not the best way to run a retail business it was only a temporary expedient. We would just have to go back to what we did before all these clever computers were invented and write down what we sold on stuff called paper until the computer was up and running again. So I toddled off home ready to activate plan B to be met


n the middle of writing my last article (a process which covers several days) I came under cyber attack. My first reaction was that Wikileaks was on to me, but realised they have bigger fish to fry. Then I looked at the calendar and realised it was Friday the thirteenth. The hackers and


Success! The desktop appeared and off I went doing my essential work,


only as the afternoon progressed I began to realise it was not as essential and urgent as I had thought. The figures I was working on had to be done to a deadline. Who had set the deadline? Me! In truth there was nothing I was doing which wouldn’t wait until Tuesday when presumably Bloke would have made everything hunky-dory again. So I shut down the laptop and went back to work where I found everything


proceeding as usual. Each branch was logging its sales, including the barcode number, which some staff had forgotten was there, in exercise books hastily bought for the purpose. Figures were slightly up, maybe due to the novelty of doing business the way it was done in the sixties, maybe not. Now I am not suggesting that we get rid of the EPOS systems developed


over the years. The old way of doing things was laborious and prone to error, but it did make me realise how we are not as dependent on our wonderful technology as we have come to think we are. I also came to understand the extent to which I have become a slave to quite costly machinery.


trying to make it work I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.


by a distraught Mrs. M wailing that the home computer was not well. I felt sure she had clicked on something she should not have, as has happened before, so sat down to sort out the problem. But I couldn’t. The monitor was on, but the screen was black. No sign of life. Phoned Computer Bloke again. Nothing serious was his diagnosis. Either my graphics card or my monitor had gone. He advised me to try a different monitor. Borrowed monitor from next door neighbour and connected it to Mrs. M’s


computer. It worked, so it wasn’t the graphics card. Back to ever-patient Bloke who reiterated there was nothing he could do until Monday, when he would come along with new monitor. Neighbour said he wanted his monitor back, so nothing for it but to


activate plan C in the shape of son’s laptop. Son’s laptop is not as other laptops, since it cost half the price of normal laptops and is believed to have fallen off a lorry which explains dent on one corner.


It benefits from a


battery which holds a charge for all of five minutes, if that. Opened it up, connected it to mains, and switched it on. Nothing happened. Phoned son who told me I needed to remove mains power plug, switch laptop on and then connect power before battery dies. Incredibly this worked. Well, after a fashion. The words “Celeron inside”


appeared on the screen and stayed there. Back to son: “Sorry Dad, I forgot, there’s a switch underneath that unlocks it.”


10 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • MARCH 2011


Now I am not suggesting that we get rid of the EPOS systems developed over the years. The old way of doing things was laborious and prone to error, but it did make me realise how we are not as dependent on our wonderful technology as we have come to think we are. I also came to understand the extent to which I have become a slave to quite costly machinery.


So what did I learn from Black Friday? First and foremost: I am supposed


to be running a shoe business, not playing with my computer. Second: that I am the one in charge, even though the computer thinks it is. Third: that while I have all sorts of information available thanks to the electronic revolution, some useful, some less so, I should spend less time poring over the figures and more time trying to make them better. Fourth and final: that the computer is dispensable, like every other I only wish I could tell it so.


employee. When I got home again I was met by an indignant Mrs. M, furious because


she had been trying to make an appointment with our doctor and failed because they had a new computer system in reception and couldn’t work out how to use it. My suggestion they go out and buy a diary was coldly received. She doesn’t like the new monitor Bloke sold us either. The case is too shiny. As it says in the Book of Wisdom: You can’t win.


www.footweartoday.co.uk


If, when the system went down, I had not gone rushing round


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