So much of the last ten or more years has been about making business more efficient. But all that's done is shifted the work onto us.

Yesterday I had to set up the login for the HOA. I had to access the main webpage, enter my zip and address, which took me to another site where I had to select my community (which should've been automatic from the address/zip), which took me to a third site where I had to register all of my information, which prompted me with a 10 minute expiring code, that I had to call a phone number to give. The first time I called I was on hold for 17 minutes, I selected the call back option and it hung up on me. I called back later in the day after logging in, with a code, and the woman on the other end handled it in less than 5 minutes. However, there's nothing she validated about what I was telling her.

And like EVERYTHING is like that. All of the prefiltering on the business end, just puts you into a different queue. Meanwhile you have to navigate a series of seemingly endless prompts that used to be someones job. Is now on you. The amount of data entry we do to go a doctor, or dentist or whatever ... is just goofy. That used to be a whole ass job, and now it's not, and they force you to do the work for free.

I work on the web team for a large hospital system in San Diego.


>So much of the last ten or more years has been about making
>business more efficient. But all that's done is shifted the
>work onto us.
>Is now on you. The
>amount of data entry we do to go a doctor, or dentist or
>whatever ... is just goofy. That used to be a whole ass job,
>and now it's not, and they force you to do the work for free.

There are a few things at work.
1)Young people (under 40) WANT to be able to just go to a website and get a doctor's appointment without ever talking to anyone.

2)Many older people (over 50) can't use a computer system well enough to do fill out all the forms.

I'm ALWAYS pushing to let people do it BOTH ways. But I get pushback:
1)From our computer developers who think that if you can't sign up online you have to be an idiot.
2)Business folks who don't want to staff call centers with more people than 'necessary'- and even if they are staffed it's a long process that takes a lot of time to help.

My theory is that 35 year olds that can operate computers very well will lose some of that ability as they age. Then we have people who are too poor to really have the internet be very available in a way were filling out forms for 20 minutes is a burden. And then we have disabled people who using a computer - even with accessibility features - is harder than just talking to someone on the phone. Don't forget mentally disabled people and people who are 'developmentally" challenged too.

It IS cheaper to have you fill out a form without help because it saves purely on labor cost. And some people prefer it to talking with another human.

It is a barrier and for things not medical you better believe they're shifting it all to self service for the reasons you mention.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

Not you specifically Handle….
Just in general.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I'm saying that we have some folks who like filling out endless forms online - and others who like filling them out in the office with office staff.

We have to address BOTH.

Many companies are going all in on digital only - and under-serving a big part of the population - not us.

But management makes these decisions and most management EVERYWHERE fucking sucks. They take profit OVER customer service at many many companies.

Got folks with $200 in groceries spending 30 minutes trying to check out

Anything else I'm not doing

but it’s definitely shady to have to scan and bag your own shit while making you believe its faster.

Only reason is because they only have 2 lanes open and lines backed up.

I didn’t even peep the game back in Philly when I started noticing them intentionally closing lanes before the rollout of self check out. I went to the manager furious one time and asked why the hell all the lanes were closed on a sunday.

lanes since shit was backed up with only having 2 cashiers. he said he couldn't make the call. it came from corp.

that's dumb. who knows if he was lying, but I didn't get that vibe.

I don’t know much about technology but I know that lol

describing is bad web design - information which should autofill but doesn't, unnecessary redirects, etc...and probably because of companies farming out pieces of the customer experience to other companies who are also farming out pieces.

The actual company you're doing business farms out to another company who handles their website. But they went cheap and that company doesn't actually do ecommerce, so that's farmed out to a separate company specifically for that, without any integration of information. That's also separate from a company that maintains a database of client information, etc...

In fact a lot of things aren't. Most places you book an appointment online, show up, walk in, fill out paperwork or tablets.

you call Home Depot, ok I get it. But you can call your local deli t order a sub and it's like "press one for turkey and cheese, press two for chicken parm...'

that should go in a comedy act

d

"But rest assured, in my luxurious house built on the backs of people darker than me, I am sipping fine scotch and scoffing at how stupid you are." - bshelly

I thought it was just me.
Almost Every personal business task is a time consuming pain in the ass now.

these days, with some companies, if you have an issue, you can't talk to anyone. you have to send an email and then sit down.

its the worst.

I went to log into sprint, it sent me an SMS code which wouldn't go to my macbook.
Then it wouldn't let me log into my account because I couldn't validate the account.
But I didn't have a phone to call them either.
So I had to go through twitter DM. Every interaction took 15 minutes to get a response.

what the hell

There's no direct site link.
There's a smart choice page that has a back end handshake with being logged into the network at work because that's where you enroll in benefits.
I have a name, an email address, and all of my information associated with the account, I'm looking at it right now
But if I try to access that same page with the portal on my personal computer it tells me there's no email address associated with an account they have and I'd need to register.
Seems easy enough right? Just go on my work computer and login in, but if I try to access smart-choice.wealthcareportal.com on my computer it then takes me to the same log in screen
What I have to do is log into the network
Go to my pay and benefits
Click the benefits drop down
Click the view and enroll in my benefits
Which then takes me to an alight.com portal that has medical, dental, vision, and dependent care ... each of these takes me to another page that I need to register on, except dependent care ... it does a hand shake in the background and logs me in through my work computer network


So from there I can see my balance and submit a payment request for day care. The daycare that exists in another portal. They email you that they've billed your account. But that's not enough proof to submit to wealthcareportal.com because they need dates of service confirmed through the procare app.

So I have to login through that, print as a pdf, save to work computer. Then upload that form. Key in two dates. And then submit.


But what if it's a one time payment like a registration fee you ask? Then they reject it and I have to submit a follow up, because there's no initial notes area to designate it as a one time thing. So even submitting same date on their end, because the paperwork that comes from the daycare doesn't have a date range, they reject it.


All of this is easily 5-10 uninterrupted minutes. And that's only after I'm logged into VPN.
I can go to our home page and log in, but then it takes me to the next page and each of those hand shakes I need to submit user information
OR
I can do VPN, login once, go to the Duo Mobile app, close it, reopen it, approve the push notification, click accept on my computer ... then I'm connected on the drive.

yeeeeeah no.

jesus.

I thought our tech had issues.

while reading through your steps I was thinking "what? no VPN?" then when you said "..only after I'm logged into VPN".

I can relate bigly.

I'm a mac and pc user for my job. They just killed off the only way to officially share files between the mac and pc...so now I've come to having to do some broke boy shit of airdropping docs from the mac to the phone and then emailing them to myself, then downloading the stuff and emailing it to people.

it wasnt an issue before, but now that Im taking on more responsibility and prodcing MORE documentation, the struggle became real.

trying to layer new apps on top of, but those apps don't contain the data need to complete the whole process.

we deal with this at my job. keep bringing in new software to be more efficient, but never getting rid of or even denying user access to the legacy stuff.

layers upon layers means the opposite of efficient. worst cake ever.

for basic sh*t is so dumb. There are like 3 or 4 different portals that I have to check for my kid's school. they all do similar stuff but some of it is at the class level, some at the school level, some at the district level. And if you need help or it's not working, good luck connecting with the teacher who's assigned to maintain that shit part time or the 3rd party company support that doesn't actually know shit about how your school uses their product.

I need a longon for my xbox, one for fortnite (I think another one for epic), then if they play on the switch I need one for that.

So after I figure all that out in about a month I forget about it and they somehow log out and we have to figure it all out all over again.
**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

makes life a bit easier for log in.