A couple of thoughts in passing.
First, a switchboard form designed by an idiot looks idiotic. (Well, DUH...) A switchboard form designed by someone who has some design expertise can be pretty slick. Switchboards, like any other tool in your toolbox, are only as good as the person using them. So don't go criticizing switchboards. If yours don't measure up, don't look at ACCESS as the problem. Look on the web for topics such as "visual design aesthetics" - and trust me, they exist.
Second, I took a variant on the 'while you are doing my job, who's doing yours!' comment. My own witty retort
was "Since I'm doing about half of your job, too, can I have half your salary?" Turned out that the guy had been hired so cheaply that half of nothing was still nothing. THEN is when I understood why I had been forced into doing somebody else's work. Which led me to the moral dilemma of bitchin' to the boss or just letting the matter slide, knowing that at least this dunce was not on the dole at the moment. Fortunately, in our environment, people get shuffled often enough that the problem resolved itself quickly. He got transferred, someone else got the duty, and I got off the hook for training the guy.
Third, I work in a U.S. Government office. Regarding the quote, "I'm not getting rid of my secretary I'm a branch manager not a typist, it's a waste of time my spending hours doing what she can do in minutes, and who's going to correct my grammar?" I think the answer is NO ONE, based on the memos, notes, letters, and instructions I've seen that were digitally signed by the manager. To them, I think "Grammar" is that nice little old lady who used to bake cookies for you when you were younger. Spelling? Wait, isn't that the name of a blonde actress? Typist? Aw, heck - if I get within one or two keys distance from the right one most of the time, it will be readable. God, I wish I were joking, but the really sad part is that I'm not.
Our documentation department used to hate seeing me coming because I always gave them a technical document that could be measured by the stacked inch. But they also knew there would be very vew grammatic errors, spelling errors, or technically incorrect statements. Of course, as a hobbyist writer, I have more than passing exposure to writing. Or, as I sometimes say, I write government documents by day and fanasy fiction by night. Almost no re-training required!
Fourth, - "PC literacy is not an NHS managerial requirement for a £70,000 or £80,000 managerial salary." Ditto for USA $90K+, if it is a Federal Government job. I don't qualify for any of those jobs, though, because I have this congenital defect... I want to feel as though I've EARNED my salary. Darn the bad luck, to be actually afflicted with a work ethic.
But where the above stays within the theme of this topic is that the schmucks who ask us to do their homework end up getting these cushy government jobs because they passed the minimum proficiency on their way to a business or government or management degree - while many of us had that really impractical viewpoint that we actually wanted to do something useful with our education. Oh, if only I knew back then what I know now!
Maybe, as a way of improving the breed, we should start giving wrong answers when it smells like a homework job. Or give the yutzes a copy of their homework in which we have surreptitiously embedded comments talking about a book publisher called the ID-10-T company.
Amazing how good a serious rant can make you feel!
