This industry in which we find ourselves is - let`s be honest - not the healthiest line of work that`s out there.
It`s full of people displaying waistlines that expand a little like Web businesses did just before the crash. It is characterised by people sitting for hours on end in front of computers, take-away lunches, screen-strained eyes, conference booze, and often not enough sleep in between the long office hours.
So it`s actually a good thing to know that some people in IT still make the effort to, for instance, stride out onto a golf course. But my respect for people in the industry who make time for this sort of thing does unfortunately disappear when I need to phone them for an interview.
When trying to write articles on deadline, us annoying reporters should (I feel) be forgiven for rudely calling people out of meetings, failing to register when someone tells us they are actually a little busy, and making hasty threats if relevant cellphone numbers aren`t handed out.
Like I said, if we need to talk to someone, we try and find a way. But to get back to the golf: a couple of weeks ago I found myself trying to conduct an interview with an individual who happened to be somewhere around the 11th tee.
He must be putting the phone down on the grass fairly close to the ball, I thought, judging by the clarity of the sound.
Dave Glazier, journalist, ITWeb
Well, that`s what I had guessed anyway, when his PA back at the office had told me when his tee-off time had been. Regrettably, I couldn`t wait for him to finish the back nine; the deadline was approaching, so I tried the guy on his cellphone.
He picked it up, said we couldn`t do the interview now, which naturally I ignored; and thus I proceeded with the first question. But I have to admit it wasn`t easy.
Every now and then he had to stop, mid-sentence, and ask me to hold for a moment. After a short silence (which I soon learned was for the purposes of a practise swing) I would hear a 'thwack`. He must be putting the phone down on the grass fairly close to the ball, I thought, judging by the clarity of the sound.
It sounded like he was hitting it pretty well. In fact, he seemed to be much better at golf than he was at dealing with the questions.
His irrelevant and poorly constructed answers could, I suppose, have perhaps been attributed to a preoccupation with how well his ball might have been lying for the next shot. But I`d say a more likely explanation is that he`s obviously a moron - evidenced by the fact he answers phone calls on a golf course.
Mentioning this incident to one or two people sitting near me in the newsroom, a colleague responded that he once tried to have a phone interview with a guy who was playing squash at the time.
Suddenly my interviewee`s concentration ability looked much better, as I read through the garbled notes I`d taken. Some of the phrases, I realised, must have been directed at his caddie rather than me. The subeditor wouldn`t understand their relevance to the article, I decided - though they were the most interesting things he`d said.
My colleague must have had to ask questions with some very short words, I thought.
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