GatewayRedbirds.com

No, it's not Microsoft, though I think these guys took a page from their formula. It's the company that makes the retail consignment software for the business I took over from my wife's deceased aunt. They shall rename nameless, but my scorn for them knows no bounds.

Auntie never upgraded the old software to the new version, so I was one of the last of installed base of nearly 1,000 to convert. The problems I found were the types of things that either get rooted out in design or very early beta.

The data conversion was a bit complex due to a new underlying database. I followed the instructions precisely according to their 20-page conversion guide. Unfortunately, the conversion guide failed to mention anywhere that you should complete a consignor payment cycle before converting. So I had to re-convert, which took a half-day.

The next problem was my discovery that open layaway balances did not carry over with taxable amounts. They also failed to mention this in their literature, nor did they have a solution. Happily I found a simple solution to trick the system into recalculating (it was as simple as adding a new item, and then deleting it from the open layaway). I called to share with them my discovery so that other users would not suffer this problem. Their response "put a note on the bulletin board and hopefully the users will see it."



A month passes, and I run my next batch of consignor checks. I then discover that the new program prints the mailing address in the wrong location on the check form--it is 2 lines higher than it should be. This means that the address is not fully visible in a standard window envelop. This problem did not exist in the old system. I email support. Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."



This left me in a fit of apoplexy. May was a big month, and so I was forced to print 126 envelops using a template developed in MS Word, retyping addresses for each envelop. It took me about 2 hours.



These idiots might be the dumbest bunch of software engineers on the planet.

Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."

Wow. That is truly ridiculous. Is it possible to have a more annoying flaw in a piece of business software?

G. Keenan wrote:

Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."

Wow. That is truly ridiculous. Is it possible to have a more annoying flaw in a piece of business software?

It's absurd, especially in light of the fact that it worked in the old version. These guys live in their own little bizarro world.

Hungary Jack wrote:

G. Keenan wrote:

Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."

Wow. That is truly ridiculous. Is it possible to have a more annoying flaw in a piece of business software?

It's absurd, especially in light of the fact that it worked in the old version. These guys live in their own little bizarro world.

I bet they sell envelopes though. Convenient!

Hungary Jack wrote:

G. Keenan wrote:

Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."

Wow. That is truly ridiculous. Is it possible to have a more annoying flaw in a piece of business software?

It's absurd, especially in light of the fact that it worked in the old version. These guys live in their own little bizarro world.

As someone who writes software / firmware for a living, you are the kind of person i always try to think about. I remember inheriting an Software Development Kit that the company I worked with sold to some Web developers. The clients were pissed and i was asked to see if I could help. First thing I did was try to install and use the SDK as documented. What an eye opener. Blatantly wrong instructions with pictures that didn't match. Examples that didn't work as documented and had bugs that crashed the software. And documentation which was grammatically and syntactically incorrect in many places. It was a total joke.

I called the client who had already scheduled a visit to us to get support and told him I completely understood where he was coming from. Spent lots of days and evenings getting the product to work which included fixing the bugs, coming up with better example code and completely rewriting the documentation. Then when the client arrived spent 3 days with him one on one to get things worked out.

What you describe is all too common. I hope you vote with your feet and find another vendor. They obviously are overworked, underpaid, and / or don't care. Their software is a reflection of the ethos of the company. Who needs the aggravation?

BTW, I got thanked for that work on the SDK a few months later by being 'right-sized' with no notice. The company went totally TU about a year later. Well deserved and not a surprise.

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:

Hungary Jack wrote:

G. Keenan wrote:

Their response: "You cannot use standard window envelops for checks in the new system."

Wow. That is truly ridiculous. Is it possible to have a more annoying flaw in a piece of business software?

It's absurd, especially in light of the fact that it worked in the old version. These guys live in their own little bizarro world.

As someone who writes software / firmware for a living, you are the kind of person i always try to think about. I remember inheriting an Software Development Kit that the company I worked with sold to some Web developers. The clients were pissed and i was asked to see if I could help. First thing I did was try to install and use the SDK as documented. What an eye opener. Blatantly wrong instructions with pictures that didn't match. Examples that didn't work as documented and had bugs that crashed the software. And documentation which was grammatically and syntactically incorrect in many places. It was a total joke.

I called the client who had already scheduled a visit to us to get support and told him I completely understood where he was coming from. Spent lots of days and evenings getting the product to work which included fixing the bugs, coming up with better example code and completely rewriting the documentation. Then when the client arrived spent 3 days with him one on one to get things worked out.

What you describe is all too common. I hope you vote with your feet and find another vendor. They obviously are overworked, underpaid, and / or don't care. Their software is a reflection of the ethos of the company. Who needs the aggravation?

BTW, I got thanked for that work on the SDK a few months later by being 'right-sized' with no notice. The company went totally TU about a year later. Well deserved and not a surprise.

Nice work. I think you cracked the code on this. A lot of application software firms probably don't realize that their customers can do a lot of the design and trouble-shooting work for them if they just establish mechanisms for getting feedback on bugs, features, etc. And clients love it when they feel that they are being heard, that their input is valued, and their concerns are being addressed.

From what I can tell, my vendor has a culture problem. I recall another conversation with a developer/support guy who explained that the new database is a "Cadillac", while the old database was a "Chevy". When I told him that "the Cadillac takes longer to start, runs slower, and doesn't always turn in the direction of the steering wheel", his response was "you have to take the good with the bad." What good?

Hungary Jack wrote: Nice work. I think you cracked the code on this. A lot of application software firms probably don't realize that their customers can do a lot of the design and trouble-shooting work for them if they just establish mechanisms for getting feedback on bugs, features, etc. And clients love it when they feel that they are being heard, that their input is valued, and their concerns are being addressed.

From what I can tell, my vendor has a culture problem. I recall another conversation with a developer/support guy who explained that the new database is a "Cadillac", while the old database was a "Chevy". When I told him that "the Cadillac takes longer to start, runs slower, and doesn't always turn in the direction of the steering wheel", his response was "you have to take the good with the bad." What good?

Haha!! My first job back in the mid 80's was with Intergraph Corp. A tech high flyer at the time. They made big proprietary CAD/CAM systems based on DEC VAX'es and PDP-11's. By the late 80's they were feeling heat from little companies like Daisy and Apollo migrating CAD/CAM applications to minicomputers and workstations. I distinctly remember a senior vice-president telling us in a meeting we didn't need to worry because we were the "Cadillac of CAD/CAM". I'll bet that speech marked the top in their stock price or pretty close. The early 90's recession bit them hard and they are now a private company doing government consulting and software services.

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:

Hungary Jack wrote: Nice work. I think you cracked the code on this. A lot of application software firms probably don't realize that their customers can do a lot of the design and trouble-shooting work for them if they just establish mechanisms for getting feedback on bugs, features, etc. And clients love it when they feel that they are being heard, that their input is valued, and their concerns are being addressed.

From what I can tell, my vendor has a culture problem. I recall another conversation with a developer/support guy who explained that the new database is a "Cadillac", while the old database was a "Chevy". When I told him that "the Cadillac takes longer to start, runs slower, and doesn't always turn in the direction of the steering wheel", his response was "you have to take the good with the bad." What good?

Haha!! My first job back in the mid 80's was with Intergraph Corp. A tech high flyer at the time. They made big proprietary CAD/CAM systems based on DEC VAX'es and PDP-11's. By the late 80's they were feeling heat from little companies like Daisy and Apollo migrating CAD/CAM applications to minicomputers and workstations. I distinctly remember a senior vice-president telling us in a meeting we didn't need to worry because we were the "Cadillac of CAD/CAM". I'll bet that speech marked the top in their stock price or pretty close. The early 90's recession bit them hard and they are now a private company doing government consulting and software services.

Sounds a bit like Sun, though I don't know if McNealy is that guilty of hubris. But the world of proprietary hardware has come and gone, I think.

Hungary Jack wrote:
Sounds a bit like Sun, though I don't know if McNealy is that guilty of hubris. But the world of proprietary hardware has come and gone, I think.

Oh yeah - long gone.

There's a disappointingly large segment of programmers who hate their own users and see customer's troubles with their software simply as evidence of their stupidity. They've even come up with a name for this: lusers.