Why Make It Worse?

    Back in the Jurassic Period when I was working at the Forest Service, one day a carload of computer experts made the drive from Prince George to our office to upgrade our computer system.  At the end of the day when they drove back to PG, nothing worked.  I am periodically reminded of that incident because I am continually running into similar problems these days on the internet.

    For some reason sites that always seemed to work fine are suddenly changed, and as a result they they are made more difficult than they were previously.  Some of those changed sites that I used daily, I just don’t bother with anymore.

    I just finished doing the layout on the calendar I make every year and so I went online to upload it to the website I use to get it printed.  I have used this website for years without any problems.  The website was fairly straight-forward and I would click on the buttons and the thing would get done.

    That wasn’t the case yesterday however,  the website had been changed (upgraded I assume).  When I tried to jump through all of the hoops trying to get my calendar printed, I failed.  Instead the site just kept sending me around and around, circling back to web pages I had had already seen, asking for information I had already given.  I was never given any indication I had done something wrong or needed to correct something, I just never did get to any place where I could upload my calendar even though I pressed that button numerous times.  After so long circling around and around on the site I was getting dizzy so I gave up.

    I did leave a message about my problem and later in the day, the big corporation sent me an email, so later today I will give them a call, and hopefully be able to talk to a real person.

    I’m sure the changes they had made to their website helped them in some way (probably helped an algorithm) but as a consumer who wanted to give them business, it sure didn’t help me and caused me great frustration.

You can view my photo-realistic paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca