Written by: Mike Crane
Computer Chaos
I joined Lloyds Bank as a Chartered Surveyor in 1980, and was responsible for managing all the bank’s branches in the South West. The job was based in London at the time, but relocated to Bristol in 1988, when the bank built itself a new Headquarters in Canons Marsh, opposite M-shed. In 1998 the bank decided it didn’t need as many Property Managers as it had, and to safeguard my (then) cheap mortgage and future pension prospects, I agreed to move into Facilities management, working in and managing Canons House, which at that time had over 2,000 staff working there. One of my responsibilities was to make the large main meeting room in the building available to the Chief Executive for the annual end of year results presentation. Senior Managers from all over the country were invited to the event, and it was down to me to ensure that the building and its facilities were in pristine condition for what was then considered to be a very prestigious occasion. The first annual results presentation in the building coincided with a time of considerable change in the bank’s IT systems. We had all been issued with new laptops, which connected to the bank’s main servers. They were all password protected, and ‘locked down’ – we were not permitted to install any software on these PCs other than that provided by the Bank. Every laptop had to be individually registered with the bank’s network. Furthermore, the laptop screens locked out after five minutes of non use, and required the re-entry of the password to re-activate them. These were all policies personally endorsed, supported and enforced by the Chief Executive. The day arrived, and I escorted the great man to the meeting room, and helped him install his laptop. Almost predictably, it didn’t work. IBM, our IT consultants, worked in the same building and were summoned to help – they couldn’t get it working either. My own laptop was undergoing repairs at the time, but in a stroke of inspiration I dashed back to my office and borrowed my colleague’s laptop, which I knew would work. As I plugged it in, my colleague rushed in behind me, insisting it couldn’t possibly be used for the presentation. As I mentioned earlier, the screen locked after five minutes of non use. My colleague’s password to unlock it was ‘B…..cks’! Further delays ensued, as I tried to explain that this was another laptop that didn’t work. The Chief Executive was not happy, not only due to the delays that had arisen with his presentation, but the fact that it was his own lock down policies that had caused them. It wasn’t one of my best days…………