As to Workday - my company uses Outsystems. While it is more reliable than Workday, I see the crappy way they do data-handling and the ridiculous WAF exceptions I have to create so people can actually apply for jobs with us. MS is an easy one to pick on, so is Apple. So I'll leave them out of this. Another giant software vendor is probably worse than MS and Apple combined. There are things they haven't changed since the 1990s.
Workday isn't the only vendor that massively sucks.
Workday in my experience was awful even when I had a job - try populating your ‘goals and objectives’ successfully at annual review time. Good luck. Will AI save us or is it just making it all worse? The movie Ideocracy was right. New Normal.
A lot is different now, and not in a good way. My local Food Lion is remodeling its store in a way that leads me to believe its goal is to discourage customers to shop there: fewer shopping carts, corraling us in one door one side of the store and another on the opposite side of the store, milk that I can't rely on not being spoiled, some products not even on the shelves. It's like making money is not part of their business model.
Something I’ve noticed as part of New Normal: when Covid hit and restaurants were forced to shutter their dining rooms, people would order take-out (I certainly did) and it was customary to tip the staff despite not sitting down for service, just to help out the waitstaff who were no longer serving and instead were working back-of-house jobs. This was supposed to be a temporary thing, but sure enough, it has not gone away. Almost every restaurant now has this screen that forces you to decline a tip when you’re paying for food you’ve just driven 5 miles to get.
Dining rooms are full, people are tipping the staff just fine again, but there still this setup that preys upon most younger, modern people who can’t bear to refuse to tip.
I made a living on tips for most of my adult life, so I tip generously. But if I’m driving to get dinner, I’m not tipping, just as I wouldn’t tip the grocery store clerk when I pay for the dinner I’m buying to cook that night.
A friend of mine works for a small company whose services include essentially being a middleman vendor. They don't directly stock products for sale to customers, they deal with the companies who do, on behalf of the customers. They charge a 25% margin. The customers know that they are paying 25% more to a company whose only function is to order the products from upstream vendors who actually stock them. The reason they are willing to do this is because those upstream vendors frequently fuck up fundamental details of their orders, and the middleman's job is to ensure those fuckups don't happen, and deal with them if they do, so that the customer doesn't have to.
In the post COVID world there is literally a living to be made out of the crumbling competency of our institutions.
Prior to covid lock down insanity, I had signed up for Thrive, a grocery delivery service. At some point shortly after the insanity had completely entrenched itself, a notice began popping up. It's still a line item at check out which you can "thoughtfully" select to show your appreciation for those front-line workers.
"Worker health & safety"
Clicking the tiny "i" yields this explanation:
"Worker health and safety fee - optional
Your support can help make a difference. You can opt-out below.
The health and well-being of our members and employees has never been more important. Over the years, we have implemented a broad range of programs across our network to invest in worker safety and well being including:
• Comprehensive Health Insurance
• Paid sick leave for workers and those with affected family members
• Mental health services and support
• Employee assistance program for counseling
• Enhanced safety training and education
To make these and other programs sustainable longer-term, we are asking our member community to join us by supporting a portion of the costs."
That's right. You, dear customer, can help the company pay Worker Benefits.
Dec 10, 2023·edited Dec 10, 2023Liked by Holly MathNerd
Until the consumers quit succumbing to what amounts to "begging" this will become a commonplace custom. Frankly, I do not have any qualms opting out or saying no to these prompts, especially when the price I just paid for my groceries, or restaurant meal, or whatever shopping I've done is well beyond what they are worth in many instances. The worker benefits they are asking us to pay for have already been factored into the price of what we purchased.
Another thing I've noticed is that there are a lot more assholes out there than there used to be.
That may not actually be true, but at least the assholes were assholey less often before covid.
Also, my gf's brother and sister have the exact same issues with Workday. They say it suxxxxxxx.
Overall, I'd say our collective reaction to covid has been the biggest policy mistake since the First World War. The morons who decided that sending an entire generation of young men to die in trenches probably thought that following the science and listening to experts was a good idea too.
So many times, coming home from the grocery store where formerly stuffed shelves are empty, common items are “out of stock,” and some favorite brands or specific items have simply disappeared, never to return, I try to tell my husband how different it is from before Covid. I don’t think he believes me.
Douglas Murray wrote this in his book Madness of Crowds relating in part to younger generation’s adversity to capitalism.
“The purpose–unknowing in some people, deliberate in others–is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies: a new religion, if you will. Although the foundations had been laid for several decades, it is only since the financial crash of 2008 that there has been a march into the mainstream of ideas that were previously known solely on the obscurest fringes of academia. The attractions of this new set of beliefs are obvious enough. It is not clear why a generation which can’t accumulate capital should have any great love of capitalism. And it isn’t hard to work out why a generation who believe they may never own a home could be attracted to an ideological world view which promises to sort out every inequity not just in their own lives but every inequity on earth. The interpretation of the world through the lens of ‘social justice’, ‘identity group politics’ and ‘intersectionalism’ is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the end of the Cold War at creating a new ideology.”
— The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray
Well, for those of us who were adults pre-Covid, that “normal” will never come back. But then, again, for those of us who where adults before the internet...there were some good times about that. I grew up when “going to the Mall” was a fun recreational thing to do, even if you had no money--there were bands and choirs and fountains and wonderful people watching. My parents were old enough to be my grandparents, so they were adults back when you didn’t even know what to want until the annual Sears-Robuck or Montgomery-Ward catalog arrived! Most teenagers considered the bra section to ne actual porn. When you ordered something, it might come in the mail weeks later, or you might have to go pick it up at the rail station. When each catalog came in the mail, the previous year’s catalog became the toilet paper in the outhouse. My point is that the lack of consumer goods is probably a good thing. The lack of competence is not, though. My grandparents could provide 100% of their own needs--hunting, fishing, gardening, building homes, sewing clothes, training horses, making furniture, organizing churches, clubs, mutual aid societies...Those skills made them free, and formidable, even when they were poor. We no longer have those skills. That is why we are all helpless, blind little grubs, controlled from on high. The freedom won’t come back until after we have re-skilled.
I'm very glad I live in Japan not the US. You aren't the only person I've seen complain about this sort of thing in the US. In Japan the post and other delivery services still work, shops have everything they should have after you take account of a degree of shrinkflation (minor weird exception is that some cereal seems to be only in small bags not larger ones) and so on.
Workday seems to be a company that seems to make it deliberately hard to complain. About the only thing I can think of is public naming and shaming on linkedin and/or X
And shortages of prescription drugs. Never before do I remember going to a pharmacy to pick up a prescription and being told they’re out of that drug and not sure when they will have more. Usually the wait is not too long, but now it’s been over two months wait for a once common pill. My sense--my fear--is because the systems that supply us with goods and services are complex they require a high degree of competence at all levels by the people who run them. My hypothesis is that since Covid competence is slipping and our systems suffer accordingly. Why the competence decline? Who knows; our schools and universities certainly deserve some of the blame as do companies who substitute equity for ability in their hiring. Add in inane government policies, and is it any wonder that our once magnificent systems are decaying. Of course, this is just speculation, but...
So true! I’m 68 and I never before 2020 had the experience of being told my prescription was out and that I would have to wait. It’s simply unbelievable. And no explanations or apologies. It’s a brave new world alright.
Florida, at least in the Tampa Bay area, is about the same as pre-Covid. Some items are out of stock once in awhile, but not often. During Covid it was fairly normal here too, the old normal. We are lucky.
Ha! You just previewed my next column. COVID broke or exposed a lot. None good.
How do civilizations crumble? Slowly at first, then all of a sudden.
As to Workday - my company uses Outsystems. While it is more reliable than Workday, I see the crappy way they do data-handling and the ridiculous WAF exceptions I have to create so people can actually apply for jobs with us. MS is an easy one to pick on, so is Apple. So I'll leave them out of this. Another giant software vendor is probably worse than MS and Apple combined. There are things they haven't changed since the 1990s.
Workday isn't the only vendor that massively sucks.
Workday in my experience was awful even when I had a job - try populating your ‘goals and objectives’ successfully at annual review time. Good luck. Will AI save us or is it just making it all worse? The movie Ideocracy was right. New Normal.
A lot is different now, and not in a good way. My local Food Lion is remodeling its store in a way that leads me to believe its goal is to discourage customers to shop there: fewer shopping carts, corraling us in one door one side of the store and another on the opposite side of the store, milk that I can't rely on not being spoiled, some products not even on the shelves. It's like making money is not part of their business model.
Something I’ve noticed as part of New Normal: when Covid hit and restaurants were forced to shutter their dining rooms, people would order take-out (I certainly did) and it was customary to tip the staff despite not sitting down for service, just to help out the waitstaff who were no longer serving and instead were working back-of-house jobs. This was supposed to be a temporary thing, but sure enough, it has not gone away. Almost every restaurant now has this screen that forces you to decline a tip when you’re paying for food you’ve just driven 5 miles to get.
Dining rooms are full, people are tipping the staff just fine again, but there still this setup that preys upon most younger, modern people who can’t bear to refuse to tip.
I made a living on tips for most of my adult life, so I tip generously. But if I’m driving to get dinner, I’m not tipping, just as I wouldn’t tip the grocery store clerk when I pay for the dinner I’m buying to cook that night.
A friend of mine works for a small company whose services include essentially being a middleman vendor. They don't directly stock products for sale to customers, they deal with the companies who do, on behalf of the customers. They charge a 25% margin. The customers know that they are paying 25% more to a company whose only function is to order the products from upstream vendors who actually stock them. The reason they are willing to do this is because those upstream vendors frequently fuck up fundamental details of their orders, and the middleman's job is to ensure those fuckups don't happen, and deal with them if they do, so that the customer doesn't have to.
In the post COVID world there is literally a living to be made out of the crumbling competency of our institutions.
WOW.
Prior to covid lock down insanity, I had signed up for Thrive, a grocery delivery service. At some point shortly after the insanity had completely entrenched itself, a notice began popping up. It's still a line item at check out which you can "thoughtfully" select to show your appreciation for those front-line workers.
"Worker health & safety"
Clicking the tiny "i" yields this explanation:
"Worker health and safety fee - optional
Your support can help make a difference. You can opt-out below.
The health and well-being of our members and employees has never been more important. Over the years, we have implemented a broad range of programs across our network to invest in worker safety and well being including:
• Comprehensive Health Insurance
• Paid sick leave for workers and those with affected family members
• Mental health services and support
• Employee assistance program for counseling
• Enhanced safety training and education
To make these and other programs sustainable longer-term, we are asking our member community to join us by supporting a portion of the costs."
That's right. You, dear customer, can help the company pay Worker Benefits.
🙄
Until the consumers quit succumbing to what amounts to "begging" this will become a commonplace custom. Frankly, I do not have any qualms opting out or saying no to these prompts, especially when the price I just paid for my groceries, or restaurant meal, or whatever shopping I've done is well beyond what they are worth in many instances. The worker benefits they are asking us to pay for have already been factored into the price of what we purchased.
You are spot on.
Another thing I've noticed is that there are a lot more assholes out there than there used to be.
That may not actually be true, but at least the assholes were assholey less often before covid.
Also, my gf's brother and sister have the exact same issues with Workday. They say it suxxxxxxx.
Overall, I'd say our collective reaction to covid has been the biggest policy mistake since the First World War. The morons who decided that sending an entire generation of young men to die in trenches probably thought that following the science and listening to experts was a good idea too.
So many times, coming home from the grocery store where formerly stuffed shelves are empty, common items are “out of stock,” and some favorite brands or specific items have simply disappeared, never to return, I try to tell my husband how different it is from before Covid. I don’t think he believes me.
Douglas Murray wrote this in his book Madness of Crowds relating in part to younger generation’s adversity to capitalism.
“The purpose–unknowing in some people, deliberate in others–is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies: a new religion, if you will. Although the foundations had been laid for several decades, it is only since the financial crash of 2008 that there has been a march into the mainstream of ideas that were previously known solely on the obscurest fringes of academia. The attractions of this new set of beliefs are obvious enough. It is not clear why a generation which can’t accumulate capital should have any great love of capitalism. And it isn’t hard to work out why a generation who believe they may never own a home could be attracted to an ideological world view which promises to sort out every inequity not just in their own lives but every inequity on earth. The interpretation of the world through the lens of ‘social justice’, ‘identity group politics’ and ‘intersectionalism’ is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the end of the Cold War at creating a new ideology.”
— The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray
https://a.co/c3fz5TB
Well, for those of us who were adults pre-Covid, that “normal” will never come back. But then, again, for those of us who where adults before the internet...there were some good times about that. I grew up when “going to the Mall” was a fun recreational thing to do, even if you had no money--there were bands and choirs and fountains and wonderful people watching. My parents were old enough to be my grandparents, so they were adults back when you didn’t even know what to want until the annual Sears-Robuck or Montgomery-Ward catalog arrived! Most teenagers considered the bra section to ne actual porn. When you ordered something, it might come in the mail weeks later, or you might have to go pick it up at the rail station. When each catalog came in the mail, the previous year’s catalog became the toilet paper in the outhouse. My point is that the lack of consumer goods is probably a good thing. The lack of competence is not, though. My grandparents could provide 100% of their own needs--hunting, fishing, gardening, building homes, sewing clothes, training horses, making furniture, organizing churches, clubs, mutual aid societies...Those skills made them free, and formidable, even when they were poor. We no longer have those skills. That is why we are all helpless, blind little grubs, controlled from on high. The freedom won’t come back until after we have re-skilled.
I'm very glad I live in Japan not the US. You aren't the only person I've seen complain about this sort of thing in the US. In Japan the post and other delivery services still work, shops have everything they should have after you take account of a degree of shrinkflation (minor weird exception is that some cereal seems to be only in small bags not larger ones) and so on.
Workday seems to be a company that seems to make it deliberately hard to complain. About the only thing I can think of is public naming and shaming on linkedin and/or X
And shortages of prescription drugs. Never before do I remember going to a pharmacy to pick up a prescription and being told they’re out of that drug and not sure when they will have more. Usually the wait is not too long, but now it’s been over two months wait for a once common pill. My sense--my fear--is because the systems that supply us with goods and services are complex they require a high degree of competence at all levels by the people who run them. My hypothesis is that since Covid competence is slipping and our systems suffer accordingly. Why the competence decline? Who knows; our schools and universities certainly deserve some of the blame as do companies who substitute equity for ability in their hiring. Add in inane government policies, and is it any wonder that our once magnificent systems are decaying. Of course, this is just speculation, but...
So true! I’m 68 and I never before 2020 had the experience of being told my prescription was out and that I would have to wait. It’s simply unbelievable. And no explanations or apologies. It’s a brave new world alright.
Florida, at least in the Tampa Bay area, is about the same as pre-Covid. Some items are out of stock once in awhile, but not often. During Covid it was fairly normal here too, the old normal. We are lucky.
Except the hospitals. They are worse than before. "Health care" workers have also gone done the crapper.
Megan McGlover was my heroine with that clip. She said all the right words as my husband would say.