So, I’m in like month two or so of the horrible computer plague known as DEMONware. As I’ve written before, it’s a bizarrely regressive system, like going all old school with an Atari set hooked up to a black and white TV. I couldn’t write any more yesterday about the time sucking, soul draining content of the meeting after meeting spiral with which the day had dawned. I couldn’t write on account of the pain, the haunting, aching throb. Here’s the deal on what I learned and needed a day to digest. Apparently, this “enterprise system” that promotes full “business integration” blah blah on it’s website is comprised of various modules that DON’T SPEAK to one another (or at least in a mutually satisfying language).

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, in the meeting we were talking about various reports that might be generated from the various databases for financial management (‘cuz, like I thought getting reports, like, you know, output, was the purpose of databases). Turns out (Even though, and here I’m just bluesky estimating, quite a few organizations, and by quite a few I mean every single fucking one of them, has to manage paying people) the payroll component (where the money comes out) doesn’t speak directly to the rest of the financial system (where the money comes from). Now grok this, will you. They aren’t sure if they can write a report that shows who got paid, how much and from what account on a single report, because those are different areas. Think about that. Imagine, a huge fucking multi-million dollar system, supporting a team of scurrying implementation experts, and quite a few well-paid consultants, for over a fucking year, and a fucking abacus is more efficient. Not only can my credit union tell me who I wrote a check to, when I wrote the check, which account was debited, and for how much, it can also provide an on-demand image of the check, all on the Internet. But DEMONware cannot tell me any obvious details, like annual salary on what account. (It will give me weekly (even for people paid monthly), and I have been advised by several implementation experts that if I multiply by 52, I will have the total. Oh.)

Words like integration, relational and fucking tools are lost in this database maze. I am not the databases’ master; I am slave, I must submit. If it tells me to open a new screen, I must. If it needs a numerical code, it is up to me to look it up on paper, as I must feed the machine. (I shit you not, after many help desk calls and discussions at meetings, they are rolling out tools to help with input and look-up and whatnot. And, what do you need when you have a fully integrated, web-based information system at your fingertips, according to the experts? Word documents to print out and hang on your wall, so that you know what fields mean.) Wasn’t there a whole magical computer movement when junk started getting, say, labeled and you, end user, could throw out your paper cheat sheet of codes? Did I dream that wonderful sense of freedom from memorizing shit and instead having intuitive tools that worked with me, the end user? Is that my Brigadoon?

But, my favoritest part of all? Imagine say a free angelfire.com or geocities.com website. Imagine a teenager with 1,000 friends, a gigantic buddy list, the ability to cut and paste every flash animation, icon, wacky font, color or widgit, available on other free sites, and full-sized jpegs galore of every day since junior high began. Now, picture that page loading, strobing banner ads and chockful of design-nightmare toys. As it loads, go make yourself a sandwich, IM thirty people, and just let that puppy load. Imagine now, a DEMONware inquiry page loading simultaneously.

GUESS which one would win?

The brightside? Thanks to this man, I now know where headquarters lie. So, if later in this life, I happen to be driving cross country, and there’s a mishap in Peoplecrap land, I will swear it’s a coincidence.