[boulder.pm] My Lovely Day

[Walter Pienciak]

So this group of people I write stuff for ask me to build them a web
interface where people can submit files and information to them
electronically.

Lots of back and forth.  What they want is an e-mail with the
field submissions nicely formatted and any file uploads as attachments.

I roll it out this morning.  They play with it:  fill in the fields,
attach a few files, hit submit.  They get the e-mail with the field
submissions nicely formatted and their uploaded files as attachments.

I get an e-mail back:  "What are we supposed to do with the attached
file?"  I'm too polite to say "I don't know and I don't care -- why
did you ask for it in the first place?"  I also think that snarling
"Shove it up your ass" would be insensitive and un-PC.  I choke out
something bland.


And yesterday?  I write/support an application being used in the N.J.
office.  Electronic upgrade to a previously all-paper process.
"HELP!!!" screams the e-mail subject line I receive.  Seems this woman
doesn't trust the electrons, so she's been printing out copies of
everything.  And this new subsystem outputs ASCII .txt files, so she's
*opening, cutting, and pasting* hundreds of files into Word, and then
hitting print -- ONE AT A TIME.  I tell her there's an easier way to do
this, if she really, really needs paper copies, and that the network
admin there can show her how to print ASCII .txt files without having to
cut and paste each one individually into a blank Word template file.

On-site, trained, several-years-experience admin *can't get it
figured out*.


A nice program we finished 2 months ago under heavy deadline *still*
hasn't been linked to anywhere on the site.


I don't think I'm going to last much longer with this company.
I feel the burnout coming.

Walter