Patchwork Quilting at Work
May. 31st, 2007 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebYesterday someone asked me why two courses that weren't duplicating on someone's degree audit one day were duplicating a few weeks later, thus requiring her to take an extra class to graduate.
The answer is that it should have been duplicating all along, but due to various complexities involved, our normal machinery wasn't catching it, my first patches weren't catching it in this particular convoluted situation, and so I had added another patch. (Besides, didn't she notice she was getting the same material twice?)
The person expressed frustration that the system could turn on a student like that. I felt frustration at the enormity of the complexities I was expected to deal with.
Today I got to agree that we should request that yet another office inform us of certain kinds of policy changes, but I'm happy to report that at no time did I fall into the trap of saying that people shouldn't be allowed to do complicated things just because of technical limitations. Yes, sometimes you have to put on bandaid after bandaid after bandaid, but that's because blackberries are so yummy.
Blog entry of the day - State of the War Address at Poorer Than You. Stephanie talks about her war on debt while going wonderfully overboard with the analogies. "Though I only enlisted some four months ago, I have been fighting this war for much longer... since The Debt led a sneak attack against me when I began my university education." I like how motivating it must be to categorize certain kinds of activity as gathering ammunition. (If you click that link, don't miss the last paragraph.)
The answer is that it should have been duplicating all along, but due to various complexities involved, our normal machinery wasn't catching it, my first patches weren't catching it in this particular convoluted situation, and so I had added another patch. (Besides, didn't she notice she was getting the same material twice?)
The person expressed frustration that the system could turn on a student like that. I felt frustration at the enormity of the complexities I was expected to deal with.
Today I got to agree that we should request that yet another office inform us of certain kinds of policy changes, but I'm happy to report that at no time did I fall into the trap of saying that people shouldn't be allowed to do complicated things just because of technical limitations. Yes, sometimes you have to put on bandaid after bandaid after bandaid, but that's because blackberries are so yummy.
Blog entry of the day - State of the War Address at Poorer Than You. Stephanie talks about her war on debt while going wonderfully overboard with the analogies. "Though I only enlisted some four months ago, I have been fighting this war for much longer... since The Debt led a sneak attack against me when I began my university education." I like how motivating it must be to categorize certain kinds of activity as gathering ammunition. (If you click that link, don't miss the last paragraph.)