*SYSTEM ERROR* *SYSTEM ERROR*

The most frustrating things about work these days are our aging systems and our bureaucracy (I guess you could say that our bureaucracy is an aging system as well). I understand that I work in a more traditional industry that doesn't necessarily have a need or desire to be at the forefront of technological advances, but the day-to-day system failures I have to deal with are getting ridiculous. First off, Lotus Notes...is there a more annoying program? Ignoring the fact that I hate the program itself, whenever I load it, I always get an error which then causes Lotus Notes to shutdown and create an error report to "help my technical team assess the problem." Although it is only an inconvenience and not a critical failure, it causes my workday to start on a sour note. My tech people do not consider fixing this a priority.

The other main system that I use on a daily basis is a proprietary system that would have been considered cutting edge 10 years ago. Besides the fact that every move you make within the program tree (think moving from folder to sub-folder) just superimposes the new window on top of the old, creating a cluttered screen, it also likes to freeze up and kick me out of the system whenever it feels like. On a good day, I'll get booted out of the system a minimum of 5 times. Tech support says this will be fixed in the next version. We've been waiting for the next version since I started working here so I'm not holding my breath.

We are also upgrading our systems to get in synch with our parent company's systems. For simplicity, let's say that we are on System A and they are on System B. Our parent company is in the process of converting to System C. It would seem logical for us to also convert to System C, but what fun would that be? Instead, we are going to convert to System B and then 6 months after that, we'll try to convert to System C. My estimation is that by the time we get to System C, the parent will be on System E.

I don't really need to say much about the bureaucracy since everyone faces the same challenges at a large company; it comes with the territory. It slows down my work flow, creates useless extra work for me and in the end, pisses off my clients. I've just tried to deal with it. I've actually been lucky and been able to work through the bureaucracy to get some difficult deals done which has made me look good, but that may change soon. My biggest client has made a request that I think is a no-brainer. We do it and I'm guaranteed to keep the business for another year. My initial read, though, is that the higher ups won't buy into it and will make it very difficult for me to keep this client. Sometimes I forget if we are trying to actually make any money...