It’s quicker and easier to complete tasks online, isn’t it? I
can shop, renew car tax, shift money around (mostly robbing Peter to pay Paul) read
reviews, carry out research, keep in touch, make appointments – the list is
almost endless.
In addition, it’s simpler. Yes? Not always.
Barry had to fill in a Self Assessment income tax return. He logged
in to the site and began to answer the questions. When he came to the section
about pension providers he duly typed in the information whereupon the process
came to a halt. ‘Contact us’ or ‘Help’, however it was named, provided a
telephone number and he phoned it to join a long, looonnnnnggg queue – I believe
it took around half an hour to travel from the bottom of the line to the top.
That
was all right though because he was able to listen to soothing music, interspersed
with messages reminding him, ‘You are in a queue.’ When he eventually reached a
human and explained the problem, that he had put in the required data and then
been ‘frozen’ he was told they knew about the glitch. The information had to be
entered with no spaces between the words and if he cared to repeat the exercise
all would be well.
Unfortunately, he had been logged out because he had been ‘inactive’
for a long period. When he logged on again he found that all the data had been
wiped and he had to start again. I don’t know how many help desks there are at HM
Revenue and Customs but much frustration and time would be saved if a note could
be inserted on the site to the effect that data should be entered without spaces.
No matter that it’s gobbledygook, the computer has been (badly) programmed to
read it.
It’s also quite difficult to write without leaving spaces,
just as it is to speak without taking breath. Computers are clever beasts but
they do take a lot of the blame for mistakes, oversights, errors, losses in
data. At least that’s the case with those in public service. ‘It’s a new
system,’ ‘the computer’s gone down,’ ‘we’re changing to a new computer system’
are three of the excuses most frequently heard.
Don’t blame the computers – blame the outfits that accept the
lowest bids for systems that then don’t work because the people who write the
programmes have not been properly briefed.
ThisisanexampleofthegobbledygooktheHMRCcomputerhastoread.Asyoucanseeit’sdifficulttounderstandbutIsupposethat’sbecausethehumanbrainisnotasadvancedasacomputerbrain.
