Donna and I were on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Monday to do our taxes. There’s a retiree services office there, manned by volunteers, and tax preparation is one of the services they offer (and they are great).
We decided to visit the base pass & ID office afterward. Even though our retired military ID cards have no expiration date and are meant to last a lifetime, now that the states have “RealID” drivers licenses the military has followed suit and everyone has to get a new ID card with a chip in it. We had all the required documents with us, so we walked over … it was only a block or two away.
The lobby was empty, save for a big easel-mounted sign blocking the way to the office. “Appointments only,” it said. Since the place didn’t look busy, we walked past the sign and into the office to ask if they’d take us as walk-ins. There was a guy sitting at a computer just inside the door … not in uniform so I’m guessing civil service (in the past everyone who worked in that shop was military). We asked him if someone would see us since we were on base anyway and he said no, we had to make an appointment and come back then. We said okay, what appointments do you have open? You have to go online to find out, he said. When we asked if he could do it for us, he said no, we had to do it ourselves. And gave us a slip of paper with a QR code on it: just scan the code with your smartphone, he said, and it’ll take you to the appointment website.
Huh. So we walked back out into the lobby and I said let’s wait a minute, I’ll go online right here and see what’s open. I pulled out my iPhone and scanned the code. The website, or appointment portal or whatever, turned out to be a Department of Defense military-wide thing. I had to enter a Zip code, then pick the closest military pass & ID office on a 50-state list, which of course was the one we were standing in. No appointments were showing for that day (even though the place seemed empty), but the next day, Tuesday, was wide open, so we picked one and booked it. Great.
When we got home I realized I had another Tuesday appointment at the same time. It was only a haircut, though, so I called the barbershop to reschedule. But the barbershop’s closed Mondays and I couldn’t, so I got on our home office iMac and went back to the DoD appointment portal. It allowed me to cancel the original appointment and sent a confirming email. Great. I went through the make-an-appointment drill again, this time for Wednesday. As with Tuesday, everything was open, so we picked one for the same time as the one we’d just canceled. Click here to book it, the button said. Click. We’re sorry, there’s a problem, please try again. Click. We’re sorry, there’s a problem, please try again. And so forth.
I still have a list of base phone numbers from the days I worked there, so I called pass & ID and got an actual human. I explained what was happening. Oh, you should be using Microsoft Edge, she said. Say what? She said it again. I said I was on an iMac and using Safari. Well, that doesn’t work, she said. Try downloading Microsoft Edge and using that instead. Baffled and bewildered, I hung up.
Then remembered my success in making the first appointment on my iPhone right there in the lobby. So I picked up the iPhone, clicked on Safari (I use the same browser on all my devices), and voilà: Wednesday booked and confirmed.
On the iMac at home, everything on the DoD appointment portal looked and worked the way it had on the iPhone an hour earlier. Everything, that is, except for the “book appointment” button. Why that should be is a mystery to me and will remain so.
Microsoft Edge? That’s some fucked up shit. To navigate a DoD-wide web portal that’s supposed to serve millions of active-duty and retired military personnel but that only works correctly with one specific browser (and nowhere on the site does it tell you that; you’re on your own to dig that information out) … well, that’s unsat, Uncle Sam. We have to do better.
Good for you, DoD, I’m not Elon Musk, ’cause if I was I’d sic Big Balls on you.
Seriously, though … experiences like this help me understand why so many people hate dealing with the government and wish to see it dismantled, hence my reference to Mr. Musk and his gang of youthful hackers.
It ain’t just Big Gubmint forcing us online with no human available to unsnarl the cheapest bidder, shitty and broken user interface software, and endless voicemail hell. Private industry’s interface with its supposed ‘customers’ is exactly the same buggy, frustrating and useless experience as government gives us.
Because it’s always always cheaper and easier to throw everything onto the Web and force every one of us to be our own administrative assistant (fka Secretary or office assistant).
Every phone call is an endless slog of wrong voice mail choices with no human available to help. If you show up in person to the office you still will not get served, because rules.
In days of yore bureaus, departments and HR would hire a teenager to answer phones, return calls, make appointments and pass on messages.
But why spend a fucking penny on actually helping customers when you can not hire the kid and just post a URL? Save the bottom line $22k a year for salery and just forget about anyone calling or actually walking into the office. You must go online. Does everyone own a computer or phone?
Fuck the would-be customers, better result for their workload and bottom line if callers all get frustrated and give up trying to get any goods or services from government or private industry.
The shitty software and complete lack of empathy and assistance is no accident. It’s always going to be cheaper to ignore anyone trying to get help. And since we are now all helpless peons, serfs and helots under the new Muskovite regime there is no downside to just ignoring us. It’s always going to be cheaper and easier for our overlords to just ignore us so that’s what they do.
This is not a problem for anyone because problems imply solutions. Whereas this has no solution therefore it is a predicament or dilemma and not a problem.
And 50% of US voters are far too stupid to even see it as a problem. It will never improve short of violent revolution, but our masters have completely forgotten that 1789 or 1917 scenario.
Sadly, it’s not just the government! Try anything that involves customer service and it’s “Listen carefully as our options have changed” world. Automation sucks if you have any questions or concerns not on the system.