MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!
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Okay this is going to be a long one. A long fucking well deserved rant.
In India, A few years ago, there was a govt issued unique number that was required for tax purposes, starting a business, opening a bank account, what not. This is called a Permanent Account Number AKA PAN. This is the equivalent of probably what a National Insurance number is in the UK.
There is also another govt issued unique number called the AADHAAR number that is equivalent to Social Security number. If you don't have this, you are fucked. You cannot do anything from starting a business or opening a bank account or nothing without an AADHAAR number. If you don't have this, you cannot apply for a passport. You don't have this, you cannot enjoy the benefits that someone with the AADHAAR number has. This one is used more as an ID than anything and has all your biometric data unlike the PAN number.
Let's call the PAN number the TAX NUMBER and the AADHAAR the ID NUMBER from now on.
Alright, now even though the ID NUMBER is pretty much required to be linked to every fucking thing from a Job Application to Bank accounts to even your mobile phone carrier, the TAX number is required. Why do you need the TAX number when you have my goddamn ID NUMBER which has all my biometric information? No one knows. I usually get a "yeah we know but ummm yeah we need that ummm we can't go ahead without the TAX NUMBER".
Okay fair enough. Now I just do the bare minimal interaction required with the fucking government because everything is a sloooooooooowwwwwwww painful process which sucks your energy, rips your soul apart, and shits on your head. I was minding my own business without having to think about any of this.
Now, a year ago, I lost my card on which TAX NUMBER is printed on. I need that physical card with the TAX number if i'm getting a job, opening a new bank account or getting a loan(you still give the ID NUMBER in all these scenarios too)
There are two ways you can apply for a lost TAX NUMBER card.
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Go to these government offices where you fill the physical forms and pay some money. End of story.
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Do it online!
I'd rather jerk off with a sand paper glued with broken glass and dipped in lava than visit a government fucking office(for the ones who think "oh they must not be that bad", read on till the end) so I decided to do it online.
Some context here, I don't know where this Idea came from or who was responsible for it but the government wante to make India digital whatever the fuck that means. Do everything online, cashless transactions everywhere don't use paper money blah blah motherfuck. So the powers that be decided to make websites for everything from buying a piece of land to applying for a passport and whatnott ooooh so advanced so tech savvy oooh yeah.
Back to getting my TAX NUMBER card re-issued.
DOING IT ONLINE
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Go to the website fill in a few basic details and click enter.
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Wait for anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes for the page to load the next screen or for an error to pop up. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you get to the next screen. I personally had to have a go at it for around 8 - 9 times. It is made and managed by a bunch of Indians ofcourse it is gonna be bad. No problem.
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You get a form with a bunch of fields under different sections and a bunch of checkboxes next to each section heading with no caption next to it. If you are having a hard time imagining this, think of a normal form but with a bunch of caption-less checkboxes sprinkled here and there. There is another document that you are supposed to read before you fill in the form that says "There are a bunch of checkboxes on the form don't check them or you are fucked". Very weird. Okay moving on.
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You get to put in your ID NUMBER details in this form. But wait how does the system know I am giving my ID NUMBER and not somebody else's ID NUMBER? Maybe a scanned copy needs to be submitted? NOPE. We are fucking paperless and digital you lil bitch. Enter your ID NUMBER, we will send you a One time password to the Phone number linked with your ID NUMBER and input the One time password. Easy peasy. This step is mandatory.
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Pay a couple dollars. Click submit. Wait for the next page to load. This takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. And then finally BOOOOOOM!!! "Your application form has errors! Please try again"
I encountered this error for a total of 8 times. Everytime I discovered one WTF after the other. The reasons why it encountered an error each time was
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The checkbox with no description at the top has to be checked because otherwise, there is no data that is passed onto the next screen.
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When you enter the good old ID NUMBER, it says "Do not enter your Name. The ID NUMBER LINKING MAGIC SYSTEM will autofill it for you". It then fails in the end cos it does not autofill, fucking obvious, should have known. However the textbox is grayed out. You gotta go to dev tools, make it editable and then fill in your name.
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Uh oh your name is wrong. This one is a very interesting WTF. This is because the fieldnames in the form do not match the fieldnames that contain my name from the ID NUMBER system. What I mean by this is
FIELDS FirstName | Last Name | Surname
ID NUMBER DATA stillwater | Not Available | surname
TAX NUMBER FORM stillwater | surname | Not Available
Do you see the mismatch? Okay fine, I will just leave the surname blank in my TAX NUMBER form. Nope, it is a required field. I had to finally fill it this way.
FIELDS FIRST NAME | LAST NAME | SURNAME
ID NUMBER DATA stillwater | Not Available | surname
TAX NUMBER FORM <BLANK> | stillwater | Not AvailableThis apparently fucking worked.
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Because of step 3, I'm supposed to check the empty checkbox above the box that says Last Name (Remember I was told not to check the fucking checkboxes) to get to the next step.
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Remember the One time password that I am supposed to get, yeah never comes some times. Repeat the whole process with all the magic steps till step 4 so that hopefully you'll get your one time password.
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Enter the one time password. You entered the password wrong. I double checked, yeah no I entered the exact same thing, crapped out on me. This happened a good three to four times and sometimes multiple passwords were sent one after the other even though it was only requested once.
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After three to four hours of pain and tears, and the One time password comes and everything is rainbows and unicorns I get the final slap in the face. The ID NUMBER system interfaces with the TAX NUMBER system to fill my address taken from the ID NUMBER database in my TAX NUMBER form and this is the step where it fails saying
"The ID NUMBER address is longer than the Address field in the TAX NUMBER form. Please fill in a physical form and send it via post"
I AM IMPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS UNREAL WOW THIS IS AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
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@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST BWEBSITE AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
You get a form with a bunch of fields under different sections and a bunch of checkboxes next to each section heading with no caption next to it. If you are having a hard time imagining this, think of a normal form but with a bunch of caption-less checkboxes sprinkled here and there. There is another document that you are supposed to read before you fill in the form that says "There are a bunch of checkboxes on the form don't check them or you are fucked". Very weird. Okay moving on.
Spambot protection maybe?
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@hungrier said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST BWEBSITE AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
You get a form with a bunch of fields under different sections and a bunch of checkboxes next to each section heading with no caption next to it. If you are having a hard time imagining this, think of a normal form but with a bunch of caption-less checkboxes sprinkled here and there. There is another document that you are supposed to read before you fill in the form that says "There are a bunch of checkboxes on the form don't check them or you are fucked". Very weird. Okay moving on.
Spambot protection maybe?
It is not. It is just a few mysterious boxes some of which need to be checked sometimes.
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@stillwater Do they have IDs that shed any light on what they're for?
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@jaloopa said in MAKE THE MOST BWEBSITE AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater Do they have IDs that shed any light on what they're for?
They used to but they lost the cards and haven't been able to get replacements.
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@jaloopa said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater Do they have IDs that shed any light on what they're for?
It's all pretty vague around here. On top of it, the govt goes NO ID NUMBER YOU AIN'T GETTING SHIT. The Justice system ruled "FUCK THESE GUYS. THIS ID NUMEBR DOES NOT MEAN SHIT. AS YOU WERE."
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@stillwater I meant the checkboxes. If the devtools show that one has
id="this_one_should_actually_be_ticked"then you might be in luck
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I'm not bothered about the fact this is a long ass process. I'm pissed because this is implemented in a very broken manner. BROKEN AF. How is this even I don't
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@jaloopa said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater I meant the checkboxes. If the devtools show that one has
id="this_one_should_actually_be_ticked"then you might be in luckOh them, they had ID's like "main_frm_1", "check_1_no", "check_1_type", "main_form_3". FUCKALL.
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@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
check_1_no
No
check_1_yes?
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@jaloopa said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
check_1_no
No
check_1_yes?Okay I should have been clear. The no in "check_1_no" is not NO. I'm assuming it was number because I saw "check_1_no", "check_1_no_2", "check_2_no_3". Kinda like how devs just leave the default names for user controls when they drag and drop. Ilike how you are so optimistic about how someone must have left a clue hahaha.
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@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
Okay I should have been clear.
Clarity kills jokes.
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@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
for the ones who think "oh they must not be that bad", read on till the en
Having read to the end I'm none the wiser on why the government office is worse than suffering through a goverment website. Me wants to know
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@robo2 said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
for the ones who think "oh they must not be that bad", read on till the en
Having read to the end I'm none the wiser on why the government office is worse than suffering through a goverment website. Me wants to know
Probably similar to this:
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I have a wild guess that the government website was subcontracted to a company which has the word "Global" in its name. Contracts in India are never awarded to a company that doesn't have "Global" in its name. I bet there are rules that specifically state this as an entry requirement.
Another wild guess: this website runs on an outdated version of Microsoft IIS, is slow as if it was running on an official's secretary's PC and looks like it was knocked together by drunk students overnight as a punishment for them being idiots in exchange of having grades at all. The likely reason is that it has actually been knocked together by drunk students overnight and deployed to a secretary's PC along with an outdated version of IIS.
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@robo2 said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
Having read to the end I'm none the wiser on why the government office is worse than suffering through a goverment website. Me wants to know
I completely missed that part. My bad. Exhausted from dealing with this fuckery for quite some time. Here goes,
I don't know if any of you've been to India, but there are a lot of people here. I also mean lots of people / sq m.
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There are no queues in the government offices. It is just a big bunch of people trying to speak louder than the next person to get attention from whoever is responsible for getting shit done.
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There are no directions on where to go, whom to talk to, how to get something done. It usually involves asking someone who points you to another person who points you to another person who points you to another person who points you to another person.
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Finally when you find someone who can actually help you out, you'll be given a form and asked a bunch of nonsensical questions. Also the people who work here act like they're oh so powerful. These are people with very less education or possess not much skills. They're on the phone when you speak to them, they don't acknowledge you're standing 2 ft away for 15 minutes. Basic Asshole.
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The form has no clear instructions either. It has sentences that sound ambiguous or sometimes don't make sense. Try your best and hand it over to the guy.
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You are given subtle cues on giving a bribe. For example if the whole thing costed 3 dollars, you're asked for 5 dollars. If you go "wait what the fuck?", you are met with a "Do you want to get your shit done or not?"
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The painful process is over by this point and you can go home. The success or failure of the whole thing is really just random chance and if it fails you gotta repeat the whole thing again.
So I had to get my TAX NUMBER sorted and had to unfortunately go through this whole thing and after waiting for around 20 minutes and given the wrong form to fill and then the right form to fill and a scattered queue of around 70 people, I go to the cunty guy and he goes,
CUNTY GUY: "I see you lost your TAX NUMBER card. Do you have a photocopy of your TAX NUMBER card?"
STILLWATER: "No I don't"
CG: "Why do you not have it?"
SW: "Why would I have it?"
CG: "Well.."
SW: "Well what?"
CG: "Never mind. Do you have the postal envelope in which the lost card was delivered?"
SW: "Why would I keep that with me? And I got it over 5 years back."
CG: "Did you get the TAX NUMBER card using your ID NUMBER card?"
SW: "No I did not. I used my Driving license as ID for getting the TAX NUMBER card"
CG: " Come on, you should have used your ID NUMBER card to get your TAX NUMBER card."
SW: "How am i supposed to do that when the ID NUMBER cards were implemented a year after I got the TAX NUMBER?"
CG: "Oh okay fineeeeeeeeee!!!! Don't yell at me! Just sign here, sign there blah blah blah"
SW: "Alright how much is the fee?"
CG: "Oh Re-Issue cost is 2 dollars"
SW: "Here you go"
CG: "You gave me only 2 dollars (with a sheepish smile usually means give me 5 dollars)"
SW: "If you're asking for more then I'd need a receipt with that amount motherfucker"
CG: "Fine go, we'll see how fast you get your TAX NUMBER card"
I just left and that guy could probably just let my application rot in the bottom of a stack cos I did not pay him more. We'll find out in another month or so. Although it took around 3 hours for filling a form that takes around 2 mins max, it went better than expected compared to my other experiences.
@rhywden said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@robo2 said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
for the ones who think "oh they must not be that bad", read on till the en
Having read to the end I'm none the wiser on why the government office is worse than suffering through a goverment website. Me wants to know
Probably similar to this:
This sounds like a fucking picnic. Add a fuckton of people and a lot of noise and garbage strewn all over and that would be closer to the Indian version.
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@wft said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
I have a wild guess that the government website was subcontracted to a company which has the word "Global" in its name. Contracts in India are never awarded to a company that doesn't have "Global" in its name. I bet there are rules that specifically state this as an entry requirement.
Haha Global, Tech Solutions, Info solutions, Info systems are all candidates
@wft said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
Another wild guess: this website runs on an outdated version of Microsoft IIS
Can confirm. Most websites are usually ASP.NET Webforms that are old as fuck or some Java Framework. I made a living for sometime working for a company in 2016 that did Web pages on SQL server 2008 and VB.NET using VS 2010. If someone's getting a .NET gig in India right now, expect the tech to be 5 years old. VS 2012 is the max one is gonna get.
@wft said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
The likely reason is that it has actually been knocked together by drunk students overnight and deployed to a secretary's PC along with an outdated version of IIS.
Drunk students sound like a bunch of people who know their shit but only intoxicated. Nah, these are people who don't know anything, never read a tutorial or a book. A senior dev does something, tells the junior dev to do it, he copies exactly what the senior dev does. Senior dev did the same thing when he was a junior dev too. Throw in a complete absence of unit tests and we have this. Also the servers are usually old boxes that are dusty and look abandoned. Someone from the Govt went we're using Azure. Azure my ass.
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I'm really exhausted with seeing Incompetence everywhere I go. I'm just.. sad.
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@stillwater There's a lot wrong with the US, but one thing I appreciate is we have a really strong rule of law. Bribes are virtually unknown, at least for people who make less than $50 million a year.
And the Washington State ID office, at least, is way more organized than that. Of course, the last time I went there I tried to get a 6-year renewal of a "enhanced" (read: TSA approved) driver's license, and they ended up giving me a 2-year renewal of a normal license. I'd be more angry but they only charged me $9, which is about a third what I owed even for the shitty thing I ended up getting.
... ok it's not great, but it's way BETTER than what you describe.
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@blakeyrat said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@stillwater There's a lot wrong with the US, but one thing I appreciate is we have a really strong rule of law. Bribes are virtually unknown, at least for people who make less than $50 million a year.
And the Washington State ID office, at least, is way more organized than that. Of course, the last time I went there I tried to get a 6-year renewal of a "enhanced" (read: TSA approved) driver's license, and they ended up giving me a 2-year renewal of a normal license. I'd be more angry but they only charged me $9, which is about a third what I owed even for the shitty thing I ended up getting.
... ok it's not great, but it's way BETTER than what you describe.
I'd say the baseline for things like Red Tape, Bribes, Turn-Around Time, Basic fucking efficiency, is way higher in the western world than it is in the east. For example, If I were in your situation, I would have gone wowwwwwwwww things are super fuckin efficient this is unreal how is this even...
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@stillwater Oh no doubt. All the Washington State websites are pretty good too... the unemployment one is a bit rough, usability-wise, but it works reliably. They recently put all the State websites on a single sign-on system, which is pretty convenient also.
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@blakeyrat said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
the unemployment one is a bit rough, usability-wise, but it works reliably
Loooooooooooooooooooooooool this is what I'm talking about. The Kind of problems you have with a government website is about fucking usability and I'm sitting here trying to use Dev tools to make a textbox editable so that the basic form fucking works. The problems we have are oceans apart.
I think someone should turn the tables, stop all this bullshit and start outsourcing Govt websites to the west. Minimally guaranteed that the $POSTs and $GETs don't crap out.
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@stillwater Possibly racist statement, but most countries just don't get software at all, and there's very very few countries that can create quality software. The US is one of them. Australia and the UK also seem to do ok. Japan, Korea, and Germany get the software functional, but seem to have zero idea how to do anything related to user experience. (Hey Germans: thank Siemens for my belief in that). Eastern Europe can do video games, but seemingly nothing else. (Japan and Korea can do video games, but the UX thing still applies-- most Japanese games have controls schemes that are closer to torturous than efficient.)
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@blakeyrat said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
They recently put all the State websites on a single sign-on system
Geez, I have three separate accounts with the California Employment Development Department alone. All as sole individual.
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@stillwater How about having Brits re-colonize you again? :)
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@stillwater said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
I think someone should turn the tables, stop all this bullshit and start outsourcing Govt websites to the west.
You don't want it to happen. They will re-outsource this back to you for a fraction of the price. You're going to end up with abomination even worse.
Although I'd like to see it. Indians outsourcing software development to the west. It's way fancier than flying cows and unicorns.
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@ben_warre said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
This is comedic genius! The most satisfying ending ever.
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@stillwater This gives me PTSD flashbacks to when I tried to use the online form to get a US visa. Well, it was more like a form for a document to apply for another document to apply for an interview at the embassy to apply for a visa.
Put 4 CS students in a room together, you'd think they can figure out how to enter an online form. Well, the form itself stated "takes around 90 minutes to fill out". Oh shit. Took us 3 hours to figure out, never has there been so much swearing before lunch time.
What does that even mean? TDEMYSR! I don't even have such a thing, what do you want me to fill in?!For example, it asked for your passport details and number at least 5 times. The field to enter the number was one character short. (This is from memory, details might be off) What do you leave out, the "D" in the beginning ("D" for Germany)? Nope, apparently the last digit is a checksum, so obviously you leave it out. Then, on one page I mistype it and it tells me "that doesn't match the passport number you entered before!". Oh really, so now you admit I've entered it 5 times already?!
And once we were almost done (doing this in lock-step on 4 computers) comes the payment processing (something around USD 150). Enter your CC information, works for guy 1, 2, and 3. I'm the lucky one who tried last and then their processing site goes belly up, CC or anything online is no longer available, and I have to actually go to a bank and do it manually. Sigh.
Of course, this probably still was miles better than your experience.
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@blakeyrat said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
zero idea how to do anything related to user experience. (Hey Germans: thank Siemens for my belief in that)
They're not the only ones, trust me on that.
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@topspin said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
@blakeyrat said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
zero idea how to do anything related to user experience. (Hey Germans: thank Siemens for my belief in that)
They're not the only ones, trust me on that.
Three letters:
S,AandP.
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@wft said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
I have a wild guess that the government website was subcontracted to a company which has the word "Global" in its name. Contracts in India are never awarded to a company that doesn't have "Global" in its name. I bet there are rules that specifically state this as an entry requirement.
Alas, this is true....
Another wild guess: this website runs on an outdated version of Microsoft IIS, is slow as if it was running on an official's secretary's PC and looks like it was knocked together by drunk students overnight as a punishment for them being idiots in exchange of having grades at all. The likely reason is that it has actually been knocked together by drunk students overnight and deployed to a secretary's PC along with an outdated version of IIS.
But we shall not talk about what the students were doing with the secretary while drunk.
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@thecpuwizard said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!:
But we shall not talk about what the students were doing with the secretary while drunk.
INB4 "Dancing around a tree in a field singing a song" Indian sterortype joke.
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Be careful saying these things, BJP goons will find you and make u apologize
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@rhywden said in MAKE THE MOST SHITTY WEBSITE EVER AND MAKE EVERYONE USE IT COUNTRYWIDE!!!!!
Probably similar to this:
People who complain about Italian bureaucracy are too simple-minded to actually grasp its Kafkian perfection. Once you reach enlightenment, you learn to love Italian complication, just like Winston Smith learns to love Big Brother at the end of 1984.
