Well gang, as I've been back in the real world (as far as "fast paced, city-life "real" that is")

I've noticed a lot of little things as far as technology and "process".

Technology is the stuff that makes life sweet, work easier, and life in general better...

Process is what keeps you from that technology 'cause executives don't adapt well.

TOP TEN TECHNOLOGY VERSUS CORPORATE PROCESS:

1. You can have a cell-phone, collaboration tools, netmeeting, a phone, voice messaging, a CB, a HAM radio, a couple of cans with some string on 'em and E-mail... your boss STILL wants you in his office to tell you dumb crap he could have just passed along any of a thousand ways!

2. Filling out an application at a "technology" store... I still have to use a pen. To think they'd save themselves the headaches of trying to read my (and a ton of other people who should have been doctors) handwriting. They could set up a single computer where you type in your crap, maybe with an option to cut/paste from a CD or USB key.

3. If you build it... they will come. Only after three years proven effectiveness, a study showing it works, a thousand hours with chimps playing with it and even then... by process... it's a gamble to make a move to any "new" technology.

4. Process demands conformity. Therefore, even though you may have a freakin' killer laptop with gobs of memory and free resources yourself, you're going to use the company standard laptop which is a 75 Megahertz POS from the dark ages, with a whopping 4 meg of RAM!

Not to mention it weighs 20 pounds...

... without the battery.

5. Your job can include all kinds of fun things to do during down-times, lunches, breaks, etc... but your work computer can only access one web-site without having to justify why you were at "Bikini-line-wax.com" at work, they wiped out the games, and every control available to try to load one.

6. You feel special for having a 500 Mhz machine. Which you only got 'cause your 8086 went down.

7. Your car has two cupholders, a comfortable seat, a radio, navigation, an alarm for intruders trying to steal the change out of the ashtray and a ton of other cool stuff... Your cubicle has none of this.

8. I can read an E-book on sexual harrassment, drugs, tolerance training, motivational seminars, etc... in under 20 minutes. Under process, I have to go to the meeting room (which takes me time 'cause I don't go anywhere without caffeine at work, and I need to dig up a notepad... and somethin' to write with, and maybe check for an E-mail that's important), tehn I have to talk to everyone in the hall (this is standard... usually dumb stuff like "So, I guess it's time for this again 'eh?"

THEN, I get some overly happy guru reading to me like a 6-year old, then we get a motivational movie (which ALWAYS sucks) and by the time all is said and done, this can take days.

9. If I can do my job from home, and if I've got better technology at home... and if I'm comfortable at home... I MUST go into the office where I can be managed, costing me gas, time and money.

10. Your boss has a tendency to lose files in digital and paper forms... why do I have to keep filling out paper forms?!?

At least with digital, you've got a copy on your drive you can send in three seconds...

amen brother!! where i work, with the phone call surveys, we cant read, eat, talk across the bays, you can't blink the wrong way without getting written up, though on Sundays nobody want to do surveys, so they cut us some slack on Morning shifts. I had a total 73 dials today in 6 hours, one completed survey, which was my absolute last call I made before the shift ended, so i stayed and got it completed, took like five minutes. All we did all day was shoot the s**t and talk about parties and stuff.

Dialing a number means pusing enter once, wait 20 sec, nobody answers, dial next number, wait, dial agaion, etc.

Dogg, I was a network admin for a call center... I know all 'bout that there dialing software...

You have my sympathies! Before I moved into IT full time, I was the project lead for a set of surveys for "Polaroid"...

Heh - sounds like you got yourself a job there DS...then again, could just be experience talking...

I hear ya about the new technology sh!t...we FINALLY are STARTING to use Windows XP on machines here at work...as long as they don't have to run the VB6 custom application that we run here...it hasn't been "tested" on that platform yet...WTF??? It's fcuking VB6 for crying out loud!! ... oh well...at least I'm in charge of the hardware that means 2.4C's or Dell D500 laptops for all!!!

Joose, nope... no job yet. Ironically, my old man got a job this evening, and I have yet to score an interview...

You need to devote more time to writing, I have found 2 posts from you tonight very entertaining

You have written down many things I have observed and thought about, things that realy irk me in the workplace

You are the "Jerry Seinfeld" of Cyberspace

I think that may be your true calling
(Sound like a good idea, but I doubt it would pay the bills...)

BTW, I just got upgraded at my workstation this month, from a 733 P-3 with Win 98, to a 2.0 P-4 and Win 2000!
(Surfs PR much, much faster )