Glenn Cunningham, “the Kansas Ironman”, was an American middle-distance runner, and was considered the greatest American miler of all time.

Glenn was born in Kansas on August 4, 1909. At 7, Glenn was badly burned in an accidental fire in their schoolhouse. The little boy did survive after a long battle, though doctors told his mother that he was sure to die. Unfortunately from his waist down, he had no motor ability. But with his iron persistence and determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk and then to run.

By the time he was 12, he had beaten all the local high school runners. His legs remained deeply scarred, however. Throughout his life, he would have to spend time doing long warm-up exercises in order to maintain circulation. In addition, his injuries meant that he could never run smoothly or efficiently.

When in university, he ran for the university track team and won his first big race, the 1932 NCAA 1500 meters. That summer, he was selected for the U.S. Olympic track team and came in fourth in the 1500 meter race in the Olympic Games. In 1933, he won the AAU 800 meters with a time of 1:51.8. Overall, he ran 20 races during that summer. That year, the first year he was called “Ironman”.

Although Glenn might have used his name as a star athlete to make a great deal of money, he was more interested in helping others. He and his wife opened the Glenn Cunningham Youth Ranch and raised over 10,000 foster children over three decades.

Throughout his life, Glenn won many awards including the Sullivan Memorial Trophy. He was also elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. As an example of the power of positive thinking and faith in one’s self, Glenn continues to be an inspiration for many.

Being an information technology, or IT, worker is not a job I envy. They are the ones who, right in the middle of a critical meeting, are expected to instantly fix the projector that’s no longer working. They have to tolerate the bad tempers of colleagues frustrated at the number of times they’ve had to call the help desk for the same issue. They are also the ones who know there are systems that are more powerful, reliable and faster, but their employer simply will not put up the funds to buy them.

According to a recent survey, employees who have a job dependent on IT support consider IT a major source of job dissatisfaction. Though no fault of they own, they can suddenly find their productivity getting worse or quality control non-existent. And there’s little they can do about it.

The experience of using IT exists almost the entire work field. It has become a critical part of employees’ overall work experience. When IT is operating as it should, employee self-confidence swells. Their job satisfaction, too, can surge when well-functioning machines relieve them of dull tasks or repetitive processes. But if there’s one thing that causes widespread employee frustration, it’s an IT transformation project gone wrong, where swollen expectations have been popped and a long list of promised efficiencies have been reversed. This occurs when business leaders implement IT initiatives with little consideration of how those changes will impact the end user, which is why managers should appreciate just how influential the IT user experience is to their employees, and make substantial effort in ensuring their IT team eliminates programming errors and application crashes. Adequate and timely IT support should also be available to enable users to cope with technological issues at work. More importantly, IT practitioners need to understand what employees experience mentally when they use IT.

Therefore, businesses need to set up their IT infrastructure so that it is designed to fit in with their employees’ work, rather than adjust their work to fit in with the company’s IT limitations.