The Times Are Changing

[stoutfellow]

I just filled out a form, confirming that I had done such-and-such as required by my employer. The form asked for, among other things, my name. I typed in FirstName MiddleInitial+"." LastName, as I normally do in official contexts.

The form rejected it, demanding that I give a valid response without punctuation or numbers.

I don't know what to think about that.

Comments

[mmegaera]

Try being a first initial, middle name, last name person. I ended up having to go through my *state representative* to get my state's health care exchange to help me fill out the forms with my name the way it's supposed to be.

[stoutfellow]

Yabbut - it was objecting to the period. When I removed that, there was no more fuss!

[mmegaera]

That was part of what the health care exchange was objecting to, too.

[stoutfellow]

Yeah, my basic feeling is this: if a piece of software demands that its users change their behavior - no matter how trivial the change - the programmer has screwed up.

(A more serious case: I had the payroll deduction for my TDA set as a percentage of the paycheck. Then the university introduced a new system, which would only allow flat-amount deductions - which is a significant problem because, when I teach in summer, my paycheck is about a third of what it is in the regular school year. This is a screwup!)

[mmegaera]

Yeah, that's how I felt about not being able to get on my state's health care exchange. It meant a difference of about $500 a month when it came to my premiums.