Dumb IT

  We've all experienced bad IT systems, ones that don't work as advertised, such as, until recently, desktop search tools like early versions of Apple's Spotlight for Macs or that obnoxious puppy on pre-Windows XP. In contrast, dumb IT technology works exactly as advertised, but is so stupid you wonder who did it or why it was created.

This week I had the good fortune to attend the DEMO '08 conference in Palm Desert held at the very comfortable Marriott Desert Springs resort. There I got to experience one the silliest encounters with IT in a long time.

Given my deadlines while at conferences, I often work on and off throughout the day, slipping back to my room to write or edit stories. So, if I'm only going to spend a couple nights at a hotel, I arrange not to get housekeeping services. To do so at this Marriott establishment I called "At Your Service," a one-stop center to get information about the variety of options for hotel guests. The person I chatted with was pleasant, efficient, and handled my request.

About my third trip back to my room during the day, I noticed that the red light on the phone was blinking, indicating I had a message. I punched the voicemail button on my phone and was informed that my "mailbox was empty," but that I did have another message "on your television."

Needless to say, nothing was taped to the fancy new LG HDTV, so I assumed the cryptic instruction meant that somewhere in the services section of the TV menu system, I'd find the message. So, I turned on the television and used the cumbersome LG remote control device to slowly page through the myriad of menus until I found the message, which was what I expected. That is, the hotel was letting me know what I already knew by looking around my cluttered room, which was that housekeeping was "honoring my request." I then deleted the message.

Talk about stupid! Why not have the automated phone attendant inform me, as other hotels have done in the past? Why make me spend a few minutes looking for something on the TV? But that was not the end of it.

At the end of my workday, I returned to the room to see that the red light on the phone was still blinking. I called voicemail again (I know. Stupid me.) to learn that I had no new message. When I had deleted the message on the TV it was not able to turn off the blinking light. I had to call At Your Service one more time and talk to a real person who, politely and immediately, turned off the offending light.

Whoever designed this workflow process is wasting my time and Marriott's money. And they, like their software, are as dumb as a bag of hammers.