November 17, 2008

So I got this e-mail from Telus telling me that my e.bill is ready. There’s nothing special about this e-mail, I get one like it every month. When I went to check the website for the amount I owed them though, the username and password fields were suddenly empty, where before the browser had remembered them. Now, for the past year or so, I have just been pressing the "Login" button, I had no idea what my username and password were anymore. I clicked on "Forgot username" link. I gave them my e-mail and account number and in five minutes I received an e-mail telling me my username. Of course I’d use my cat’s name! I went back to the Telus website and clicked on the "Forgot password" link. I gave them my newly retrieved username and my e-mail and I got this error message: "The username and e-mail do not match". What?!? You just sent me this username to this e-mail address... I called Telus. I explained my situation on the phone. "I’m sorry miss, all that I can do for you is delete your entire account and you can register again." How the hell does that work? I don’t even want to know what backwards thinking programmers they have working at Telus that created this awful system. I bet they had a big long meeting about the way this e.bill thing would work too. I see this a lot. Why do people refuse to make changes, improve the system, move forward, make things easier, make things make sense? They probably even have (if they’re lucky) that bright, young, excited and freshly out of school person asking why things are done this way and that way when they could be done faster and better in this new way. I bet he’s getting the same old answer "we’ve been doing it this way for years, it works even though it takes longer and it requires extra people". After a few more times of getting the same answer and being forced to do things the hard way, the young person will not give a shit anymore, do as little as possible, or move on to the next company. Only Telus loses out; a great employer and added work hours in trying to deal with a crap system. I have never worked for Telus, nor do I know anyone who works there. This is just how I imagine things are. They must be. They seem to be that way everywhere else.

After having fun with my Telus account, I went on to check my Visa bill. Months ago, when I went to the website the first time, it took me a while to find out the login button on the TD Canada Trust website, but now I know where it is. You’d think a bank could afford a better designer. I got to the login page, I entered my access card number, I entered my password and instead of getting to see my records, I got these stupid questions: "Who was your favourite teacher?", "What was your major in school?". I tried to answer them as truthfully as I could, but I failed and suddenly this red message in all caps came up: "THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN LOCKED". Oh crap! I called Visa.

"Please enter your access card number."

"Please enter your social insurance number."

"Please enter your three digit secret telephone password."

"Your telephone password is incorrect. Please enter ..."

Fuck! I pressed 0.

"Please wait for the next available operator." Should have done that in the first place.

"Your name please."

I gave him my name.

"Your address."

I gave him my full address, postal code, province and country.

"What’s the problem?"

Well, I failed the questions on the "EasyWeb" and now I’m locked out.

"Do you have a secret telephone password? I just need a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer."

"Well I thought I had one, but when I entered it, it said it was wrong, so I guess..."

"Just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ please."

"No." I bet you the answer was yes.

"Can you remember any transactions you made in the last 30 days?"

"I rarely use my credit card... I bought something on Amazon ... maybe that was more than a month ago. I only use it online or when they don't accept debit..."

"Can I put you on hold?"

Oh fuck, I can’t remember any purchases... he thinks I’m a fraud. I sound like a fraud.

He comes back.

"Do you make any bill payments with your credit card?"

"No." I’m certain I pay for everything from my bank account. I’m not stupid to use my credit card to pay bills.

"Please hold."

Shit. I didn't care about my credit card, but this was embarrassing. He really didn’t think I was who I claimed to be. The gym!

He comes back.

"I pay for my gym with my credit card!" I cut him off.

I swear I felt him smile.

"And how much do you pay?"

"Around forty dollars." I felt like a kid who finally had the right answer and was going to pass the test.

"And how often do you pay?"

"Monthly!"

"What’s your gym’s name?"

Crap! That name is hanging on a plastic card off my keychain. I know the logo, it has an "X".

"Express something".

This seemed to be good enough.

"I have reset your password to _____ you have to log in and change it right now."

I logged in and after the password change prompt, the darn questions came up again... Wasn’t Sarah Palin’s e-mail hack proof enough that the questions don’t provide more security, if anything, they provide a smooth path for hackers? I typed in "stupid question" as my answer to all the questions. Now the whole world knows, just as they would have known the true answer too. My major? It’s right here on my website.

November 13, 2008

Dimitri

Middlesex is challenging and thought provoking. I don’t know if challenging is the right word. I guess that when "something" that I have preconceived opinions about is thrown at me and I’m forced to see the "something" in a different light and I’m able to "kinda" understand it, then that’s a challenge. And what are books for if not to make one think about difficult choices? That’s not saying much. To state the obvious, there’s always a reason for every wrong. Every murderer, thief and any other kind of criminal has an excuse, a reason. There’s always a series of events that lead to the final act, and those events are so much fun to discover. I guess Cal could be the final act and choices made by two generations before him trigger the events that lead to him. It’s a fascinating book, full of heart, humour and lovable, colourful characters. This novel will be interesting to discuss at the book club meeting.

November 8, 2008

My greatest peeves as a web developer:

1. People who don’t have a clue about building a website, who tell me that it’s easy. Yes, it’s easy for me now, but it took me at least two years of continuous website building to get to the level that I’m at. I’ve hit a lot of walls on the way and I’ve had a lot of frustrating moments trying to get a website to look right across all browsers and getting JavaScript to work across browsers. I’ve met people who tried to understand HTML and CSS and gave up, so till you at least try, don’t tell me it’s easy. Till you’ve been able to get your website to look properly across all browsers and to match the design exactly, don’t tell me it’s easy. Because when you tell me it’s easy, you undermine the work that I’ve put into learning this, you undermine the fact that I can look at a misaligned page and I can tell exactly what’s wrong and I know within seconds how to fix it. I’ve had clients who tried to edit their own HTML pages and came back to me because they "broke" them.
2. Programmers who think there is no need for front end developers because they can do it all. I’ve seen code written by backend developers. It’s similar to code where there are no functions and a bunch of nested "for" loops. Programmers write the most inefficient, inflexible and hardest to maintain HTML. Don’t get me started on the CSS. Did they even try to see if the line they just wrote even affects anything? Unfortunately, often, I have to work with HTML written by a programmer since the backend is developed first and it often includes a template the programmer thought he/she would be the best person to write, hence screwing up the front end development for years to come.
3. Clients who insist on having a website done in a ridiculously short amount of time, who then fail to launch for months to come.
4. Clients who think they know better than me and force me to do stupid things such as having all the links pop up a new window. If you ever see an annoying and frustrating website, know that it’s not always the web developer, it might be the special client request.
5. Clients who do not understand that websites are dynamic and that content is not always going to be the same height.

There, I’m done venting.

November 5, 2008

I started a new job two and a half weeks ago. I can count on my fingers how many names I know, though I am familiar with quite a few more faces. It is very different working for a big company of over 200 employees, from my previous work, where there weren’t more than 20 people at one time. I don’t mind getting lost in the crowd, or the greater amount of people I get to study. I’ve already had the occasion to notice some big difference in the behaviour of people here, in a company where there’s room to move ahead, compared with the people from my last job, a dead end job. Observing ambitious, brown nosers is fascinating and amusing.

I suffered from anxiety, which turned into insomnia into my second week. All it took to get me to that point was seeing project after project come my way with a note "you’re dead if not done by...", which I guess it’s supposed to be funny. For three days I was unable to slow my body down. I had lost complete control of my racing mind. After two restless nights, on the third day I tried yoga. It didn’t work. I gave up and took sleeping pills and wine. It worked like a charm! I am okay now, now that I know I can handle the projects.

I have a book club meeting in less than two weeks and I haven’t yet read the book. I read two other ones: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence. Funny, I just noticed both authors have the name Lawrence to them. I liked both books. The first one is telling the life story of a girl who was taken from her village in Africa and sold as a slave in North America. It was hard to put down, there’s so much misery, pain and horror to read about, of course I was curious about it. It’s a great story, well imagined and written and I have no doubt things were indeed that terrible for slaves at that time, as unfortunately they still are in some parts of the world. It’s a first person’s narrative and I was awfully aware of the author’s sex and shamefully detached from all the described horrors. I have not encountered many male writers, who can write believably from a woman’s perspective. The best one, for me, is still Samuel Richardson in Pamela. I’m disappointed I didn’t cry. As for the other book, D.H. Lawrence, is becoming one of my favourite authors. I still liked his Sons and Lovers better, and I completely disliked Mellors in this book, but I love the way his characters talk and how he tells you so much about a person through the things they say. I love the way none of his characters are one dimensional, they don’t always act as expected, they all have things to like and things to hate about them. I expected a more dramatic ending, the book seemed to be heading in that direction, but even without it, it’s a beautiful novel, with some of the most tender, warm and genuine love scenes.

Earoel & Graham

Ilona

Ernie

David