Wednesday, July 6, 2011

User-Hostile Systems

The latest OS
At current, I'm mostly stumbling about and trying to get my bearings around the new job. I still haven't found my next Cpt. Awkward BFF but people are generally quite nice and helpful as I sometimes feel like a little kid since I can't figure out how to use the printer in the correct way.

A lot of the time now is spent on trying to understand how things work, what all the actual formal process are and then also trying to figure out the informal culture while looking like I'm really having the time of my life. Nevermind the time I have to spend figuring out the drugs and products that I will be managing (and add all the diseases and complications that they are for that I need to get detailed knowledge of).

One huge success of the day was that I finally figured out how one part of the IT system worked; the part where I can request additional software online to be installed on my computer. The system was not very user-friendly and extremely difficult to navigate and figure out even for a person relatively used to computers, but what turned it outright user-hostile was when I finally successfully had logged the request and was transferred to a screen with large red letters (in English) saying **WARNING** and then in much smaller Japanese text under it: "Your request has successfully been filed".

I'm not really sure if I need to be looking over my shoulder now even though the software I requested is freeware and shouldn't piss anyone in the IT dep. off too much, but I can't say that I wasn't warned.

8 comments:

Martin said...

Why not try out your body odour comment and set the informal office culture to your standard right away?

Chris said...

"**WARNING** and then in much smaller Japanese text under it: "Your request has successfully been filed"."

Glad to see the Japanese is smaller cuz they don't grow over 4ft (I think that everytime I smash my head into a low door frame...how many foreigners go home with undiagnosed brain damage??

TheOctopus said...

Looking forward to some IT department-related rants ;)

(Disclaimer: I got into this whole IT business due to the general uselessness of IT departments)

Fernando said...

The programmer who made that final text has the frustration of not working for the National Defense in the "nuclear hazzard" department hahaha

F. said...

oh, if that's the worst they could come up with, you should be fine.

We are still using IE-6, for, ahem, "security reasons". I start my day with a Microsoft warning that "this browser version has been phased out due to security concerns".

FAIL.

Paul said...

Good luck in your new job. I have to learn medical things too for my job, so I thought maybe this link may help:

http://lsd.pharm.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ja/service/weblsd/index.html

It's a project setup by Kyoto university that's been going for a few years. May come in handy sometime.

Anyway, good luck! The medical stuff is pretty interesting though I think.

jlpt2kyu said...

Many old sites (like intranets) were programmed to work in IE6, which was not standards compliant, so those old sites don't work properly on modern browsers (display will look weird and some functions will just break). My company also tried to hang onto IE6 until recently for his reason but there is only so long you can keep your head in the sand for.

TheStrawMan said...

Wow, and I thought my company was strange in that it's still using IE6 and other primitive software.

Was a real shock to move to Tokyo from the Inaka, join a huge Japanese megacorp, and then instantly feel like I've traveled back in time 10 years...

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