Dammit Wednesday: Your Compliance Is Required

Is it too much to ask for compliance from our tools? Shouldn’t they work the way they were designed and advertised to work? It’s one thing to be overloaded with things to do but even with the stresses of being overwhelmed aside, when you have the tools (in my case software) to work on a project you should be able to eventually get it done, provided the application works as well as you do.

My day job is in an environment where we often times need to get information very quickly and we need to do things quickly so we can move on to the next task, when stuff is slow or isn’t working it can be very frustrating. Last week was a perfect example of a simple issue causing a ripple effect through our everyday workload. We’re currently in the process of changing partners for our VoIP telephone service and part of that process is getting our existing software integrated with the new system. As of this past winter our billing software is fully integrated with our provisioning system, when a change is made in the billing system it is instantly reflected in the provisioning system eliminating the need for double entry. Last week that synchronization broke and it took a couple days of troubleshooting just to find the problem and a few more days of intermittent BS before everything was back to normal. Ironically the problem was related to the new changes that were done in preparation of the VoIP provider switch.

Where is this rant going? Well if all of our tools magically worked the way they should without a hitch our lives could be so much easier, and uncomprehendable amounts of time would be saved. But unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. The truth is, often times these software glitches end up being some Monday detail that was missed when the system was created or put in place. Which means because someone didn’t do their job or guaranteed something that isn’t there the end user gets to pay the consequences.

Sure, mistakes are made. But spending additional time installing expensive SNMP cards because every other one is bad, or getting excited about a new feature in an application only to find that it doesn’t work, or experiencing repetitive downtime with a leading web host to the point where they don’t bother apologizing for my inconveniences anymore – it’s all starting to get on my nerves.