Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Funny how enterprise software never seemed to be installed on the Enterprise itself
The Corporate Overlords have recently changed the time tracking system. The previous one was, I think, developed in house and all things considered, wasn't that bad. The new one, not developed in house (perhaps because “code is a liability” or tax differences between opex and capex—somebody got a bonus I'm sure) can be best described as not being that good.
The new system, a third party, “enterprise class” time tracking application via the web (of course), doesn't respond well if you enter the data too fast. And one of the fields that's a “pull-down” list of items takes forever to load, no matter how many entries you make—it never gets faster.
But today I learned about another limitiation. Due to COVID-19, I haven't taken any vacation time, and because of the quarantine, I haven't been sick either. So I have all this time accrued up that I now have to use (yeah, I know, first world problems). But there is no way to request a single block of time off with the new time tracking application. No, you have to enter … each … vacation … day … one … day … at … a … time.
So it's select the day, wait a bit for the popup window to appear, select category, wait a bit while all the categories load, select “absent,” wait a bit for the sub-categories to load, select “Paid Time Off,” select out of that field to make sure it takes, select the “reason” field, wait a bit, select “other” (because the only other selection is “sick”), select out of that field to make sure that takes, be glad that the “time” field is pre-filled out with 8 hours, but wait until the popup stops resizing itself, then hit “Okay,” and wait until that takes. And then do it again for the next day. Then once the week is filled out, hit “Submit,” wait a bit until the next page comes up, and hit “Done” to do the actual submission. And then do all that again for the next week. Repeat until done.
I just wish the executives responsible for selecting this “enterprise solution” were themselves subject to it, but alas, they have secretaries, so we mere employees are subject to this craziness.
But as my manager said, “at least you get paid to do that.” Yeah, there is that.
Some questions about “enterprise software”
The talk of “enterprise software” in the previous entry reminds me of the time I worked at Negiyo, twenty years ago. Back then Negiyo had an issue tracking system that was built in-house. It was very nice, because the people who were building it were also using it so they were subject to the same pain points as everybody else in the company. But towards the end of my time there, it was decided by “the executives” that it had to go and be replaced by some third party “enterprise class” ticketing system. I wasn't there for the switch-over, but I had friends who were, and from what I remember, everyone hated it, and it took a few years for it to come close to the capabilities of the in-house ticketing system.
I have to wonder what the incentives are for this type of idiocy to happen. Strippers and steak? Hookers and blow? Executives trying to justify their jobs? Or is it some form of capex/opex tax thing?
Great, now I have to train my next manager
Today my manager at the Ft. Lauderdale Office of the Corporation just announced he's retiring. Not immediately, but by first quarter next year, maybe second quarter. I'm sad to see him go, but alas, these things happen. He's the 6TH manager I've had since I started here at The Corporation.
I was sad when managers #1 & #3 left and #4 & #5 were let go (#2 wasn't a good fit for what I was doing at the company, even though technically he headed the QA department when I technically was working as a QA engineer—I was the only QA engineer for call processing while the rest of the department dealt with Android phones), but things will work out.
I don't know if I should be amused or alarmed that I've outlasted six managers.
