Seriously...
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I tihnk you're confusing "design" with "implementation" there...
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@Speakerphone Dude said:
@bridget99 said:
She made a statement at one point that was something like "I don't see why you guys go to all this trouble... I'd rather just fill out this form by hand anyway." My whole job performance was being evaluated based on my ability to automate people's jobs and farm out work that was previously handled within IT. I wanted to scream in her face "THIS IS HOW I FEED MY KIDS!!!" but she wouldn't have gotten it anyway.
So the reason for her to use electronic files instead of paper forms was so you could automate some work and justify your own job
Nope. Bridget99 focused narrowly on the question asked - normally a good thing, but apparently confusing to trolls. The reason bridget99 went to all that trouble was to feed kids. The reason for the user to learn how to fill out the electronic form is because it's much easier to process the electronic form, thus eliminating the jobs of the many people who would otherwise be needed to process them.
@Speakerphone Dude said:
Some day the Bobs will be called in by management, they will meet the staff and assess who is actually bringing value to the company. The old woman will keep her job (and her manual forms), and you will get a nice brochure explaining that losing your job was the best thing that could happen to you.
You think management will fire the few people who enabled them to lay off hundreds of people even more useless than the old woman bridget99 was complaining about, and hire the masses again to do the manual process? Dream on. Jobs that enable one to get computers to do the work of dozens are only at risk by either management who don't understand somebody needs to maintain those systems, if only to keep up with management whim changes, or by people who can get computers to do the work of hundreds or thousands.
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@tgape said:
Jobs that enable one to get computers to do the work of dozens are only at risk by either management who don't understand somebody needs to maintain those systems, if only to keep up with management whim changes, or by people who can get computers to do the work of hundreds or thousands.
That is exactly the kind of vaporware sold by useless IT drones that never ever worked but somehow floats around like common wisdom. This wishful thinking is why abominations like BPEL exist, and I'm pretty sure that if all the money wasted on that type of ludicrous projects had been saved it could be enough to cover the Sahara with gold-plated sprinklers and Ben & Jerry stands.
Automating the work done by production workers to remove manual steps is one thing; it worked well in the 80s and 90s and is now pretty common. Automating the clerical work done by people who support the production activities is so far out of the value-chain that it is by definition waste. There is a reason why so many companies went bankrupt while trying to implement SAP.
You will always find an imbecile to sign-off on an office automation project because he has been sold on the idea that a wicked piece of code or a SharePoint workflow can replace Linda in Procurement, but the cost of implementing and maintaining that solution will always be higher than the shit salary Linda is getting. Unless she does an absolutely repetitive job with no variation or unexpected situations, which is almost never the case because other parts of the organization are not "optimized". That kind of project will run forever, or until someone pulls the plug, and it's a shame.