On a different route.
Cereal boxes - Why are the things so darn hard to open nowadays. When you open the cardboard outerbox they always rip. And the inner bags that hold the cereal? Damn, what do they make those out of? They are impossible to tear of pen manually without making a huge mess.
Bubble packaging - Ever buy your kid a toy and all this packaging which you must cut open, then undo dozens of those wire things holding them, and the edges of the packaging are sharp as a knife?
And those ones are an example of how to do things right. The best ones have algorythms to check for each country: proper format and even proper address-matching (the UK is probably the hardest one for this, every other place whose postal system I’m familiar with is a lot easier).
I read recently (and I know I’ll never find the article) that the number of ER visits resulting from “packaging injuries” has increased as a result of increased attention to theft/tamper proofing products.
So, win-win for the product producers and hospitals!
Clearly, there’s a market for a small, safe chainsaw for the kitchen and for plastic bubble packs.
I’m on the tech support side of this, and it is insane. Seriously, one of the appointment/scheduling/patient record/billing programs I support, I have to reset the user’s password in five different places. There’s the web interface, there’s the databases on our side, and there’s the I-don’t-even-know-what-they’re-running thirty year old mainframe on the application owner’s side. The user has NO ability to reset their own password, except the first login after I’ve reset it. Just for shits and giggles, the system will warn them for an entire week that their password is about to reset but never give them the chance to reset it.
Problem with the program? Well, it might be the software on the computer (not us, another service desk). Or it might be an account issue (us). Or it might be a schedule problem (practice manager at the clinic). Or it might be a global issue (the application owner who doesn’t speak with us plebs directly). It might even be an issue with one of the major fiber optic lines between the application owner, us, and one of our clients, and none of us can do anything directly because it has to go to the owner of the physical infrastructure. Once, we spent most of a month chasing down an issue that involved the Philippines (our offshore contractors), our networking department, the application owner, the owner of the T-3 who linked the contractors with us, and the client, and because everyone has the service desk number, we were the ones getting yelled at for stuff not working. >sigh<
Another one:
software set up for multilingual locations.
Between people talking about setting up the ability to print out Rxs and doctor’s notes for an area with two official languages as if it was more complex than setting up a colony in Pluto (solution an irritated end user finally asked “why don’t you…”: set the texts for each language, associate each of the three possible language combos to a given patient based on postcode and let the users update it if the patient’s preference was different from his area’s default), GPS, issues dealing with varying name structures (really, Lufthansa, you can print my name right on your miles card but not on the plane ticket?)…
Sometimes I wonder how many software designers still haven’t figured out that there is more than one language in the world. In my most patient days I blame it on “being succesful beyond their dreams”, but seriously, Google Maps? Am I supposed to believe they’d never heard of “multiple languages”?
Yesterday I sliced into a new shower curtain I was trying to get out of the packaging. It’s not food - so why the zealous sealing?
Whatever you do, make sure your Rewards Card account name doesn’t have your nickname on it.
I don’t go by my given name, and my nickname isn’t even related to my given name. People know this, and deal with it. Millions of people are in the same situation. (Never heard of a “Clarance” who goes by “Jack” or some other unrelated name?)
Some months ago I stayed at a Hilton on business and the fellow at the counter offered to give me a frequent guest card. He filled everything out for me and handed me the card, with my nickname on it. I figured that there wouldn’t be any issues.
As it turns out, unless the card name matches exactly the government ID shown at check in, they don’t add the points. It took me about 8 phone calls to different places, along with a chain of emails to their “message in a bottle” customer support email box for their rewards card. Every time I explained the problem I got the same boilerplate “Please email us a copy of your government ID before we can make this change.”
Multiple CSRs in their rewards card help center didn’t even seem to acknowledge that I had a right to be annoyed.
I finally resolved this by contacting Hilton HQ and working with someone there. My problem was this: Their employee typed my name incorrectly, so why should I be jumping through hoops for two weeks and faxing/emailing sensitive personal documents to mysterious places in order to resolve that? Especially considering that they had my hotel stay on record, with my company and credit card and so on. What was the problem?
The right guy was able to fix the problem in two minutes.
Each person I spoke with contradicted the other, and they all pointed at each other. I explained to each one that I, as a customer, see Hilton as a single entity, with a name and reputation that they have worked hard to build and maintain. These kinds of stupidities completely go against the grain of the image they are trying to present. Nobody really cared about this point.
Last summer on a Sunday, during a rather violent thunderstorm my Verizon phone suddenly started sending a text message that I had sent on Saturday. It sent it over and over again until the guy getting them finally called and told me to stop. I ended up calling Verizon and they had to make THEIR system stop sending the texts.
Now get this - they wanted me to pay for them. About $180 worth of texts.
Well I was smart enough to right away start taking names and documenting stuff so I had to go thru all these hoops - CSR, phone calls, emails, again and again. They sent me to some sort of “Special Billing” department which was supposed to fix this all and they kept saying it was still my fault their system somehow sent all these texts (I really think it had something to do with the storm) and they wanted me to pay but I kept on documenting every CSR, every supervisor, every time I called or emailed this until finally they took it off my bill.
Thing was I was texting someone who used T-Mobile and they didnt give him any grief.
I worked for a University hospital once and one time their was an issue that involved our hospital, the local phone company, the long distance service, and the university computers. Everyone kept fighting saying the problem was the others fault until someone contacted the Kansas state regulatory office and that manager had the authority to ORDER all parties to send their reps to a meeting for a sit down.
Yeah, that’s right. Since this was a state hospital and connected with University of Kansas he had the authority to order and if need be, to send Kansas State troopers to an office and haul the company officers out in handcuffs if they didnt comply.
Needless to say all the IT people either met in person and had a conference call to settle the issue.
Have you considered consolidating your loans? When I finished up grad school I had 3 loans by 3 lenders at 3 interest rates. Consolidating them gave me one loan at one rate (better than any of the prior 3!), with one payment per month.
Departments change degree plans; if you have to re-enroll or something, they may make you meet the requirements of the current plan rather than the one you started with, which can be pretty large.
My school didn’t really have time limits, although past some number of credit hours without a degree (160, I think), the price per credit hour went up precipitously.
Is it a Perkins loan by the institution, perhaps? I know I cannot do online payments for that one. And they don’t offer income based repayment either (ouch). I just started back repaying, and was trying to find a way to do it online. Various different ways. No dice, and since I’m out of country, the only option left is… Call them when I have to pay so that they can do it over the phone (by Skype).
If you’re talking with a young lady, you might warn her that when she gets married, she can kiss being able to easily deal with utility companies good-bye (well, as easily as she used to be able to). Even in our modern society, utility companies still won’t deal with wives if the utilities are under the husband’s name - the husband has to call in to do anything. The first time I ran into this, my jaw practically dropped - what do you mean, I can’t make any changes on my utility account because it’s in my husband’s name? They’re my utilities too, and I’m the one who does all the financial stuff in our house! But they will throw the ladies a bone - your husband can put your name on the utilities too. :rolleyes:
Of course they do, but it’s not true that you can get screwed by taking a semester or two off,which is what the original post about taking time off implied. You might get screwed by not looking into the the rules before you take that semester or two off to see if you need to take a leave of absence or if that semester or two is going to cause you to fail to meet a time limit. You might even have to take a couple of extra courses if you don’t get the leave of absence or take off longer than a leave of absence permits and the curriculum changes- but they don’t change so quickly and drastically that taking two semesters off after you have 110 credits drops you down to 45 usable credits.
Warn her instead that the utilities should be put in the name of the person who is going to deal with them - because they also won’t deal with my husband when it’s my name on the account.
Yeah, all they care about is the person’s name on the account. My internet provider informed me they would be raising my bill, and I didn’t want to deal with complaining with them so I had my husband do it. Lo and behold, I had forgotten to put his name on the account when we originally signed up, so they mhmmed and ahaad and said, “well, since your name isn’t on the account, please have the account holder call us” and that was the end of that.
Frankly, it IS too much trouble for me to call them once a year so it’s not needlessly complicated for me; I simply pay the amount they ask and be done with it.
Well, college is supposed to be about learning to think logically and do research, not about picking up a dozen skills for today’s fads. Say you get a BS in Computer Science. It’s not about learning Java or Visual Basic or Perl or whatever, it’s about learning how to think like a programmer and understand algorithms on a deep level. Learning Java or whatever is only a tool you use to demonstrate what you’ve learned. When you graduate, you can go off and teach yourself C# or whatever language you need to know to get a job.
My husband runs into the inverse: since I did the utility setups when we moved, they’re all in my name, and he either has to deal with things online or have me handle it.
Probably should see about adding him to those accounts.
Oh yes, hospitals and their affiliated clinics are BY FAR the worst when it comes to this crap, I suppose because they’ve had the least incentive to move into the modern world.
Ironically in the area I live in, the first Medical Industrial Complex to attempt technological modernization when it comes to appointments, billing, etc. still has its collective head up its ass when it comes to the billing part (paging radiology here). I detest the entire billing process with them - I may be able to pay my bills online, but I sure would like to know WTF they are for before I do that (I’ve been billed for hundreds of dollars in this system in error). Billing was a nightmare before they instituted electronic records, and it’s still a mess now.
By contrast, the other Medical Industrial Complex I deal with here does a much better job of prompt and accurate billing … but they have recently started the modernization thing … and while I will welcome the parts that allow us to easily make appointments, check records, etc. I fear the billing may fall down the same rabbit hole.
And in case anyone is wondering, one way we could save a HUGE amount of money on in the medical world is just by streamlining the billing process. But of course the players there would rather we not pay attention to that part …
Well, if you want to mess with their heads, when the person on the phone says “I’m sorry Mr. Seanette, we’ll have to speak with Mrs. Seanette” your husband should get all indignant and say “What are you talking about? This IS Mrs. Seanette.” Then watch the person on the line get all flustered. Of course, most men’s egos would prevent them from trying this.
But I know what you mean, the security screening based on the perceived gender of the voice of the caller is maddening. My elderly mother still has some accounts in the name of my deceased father, so I have no problem calling up those companies and pretending to be him. But if I want to help her out with an account in her name, we have to set up a three-way call and I tell the agent to ask her if it’s OK to talk to me. And at other times, I’ve asked a lady friend to call up and say she’s my mother while I listen in and give her notes about what to say – everything goes smoothly if the gender of the voice matches.