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Opinion
Forms and Function
6/14/2007
Do your online or LAN-based processes for students and others include steps that are wasteful, appear to make no sense, or appear to be redundant? If so, you might think about changing them. I'm not the only "user" who gets annoyed by things like this. And it's funny how the various "forms" we make people fill out get to very little attention, whether they are digital or on paper, so little attention that they can be full of weirdness.
The large university from which I receive my monthly paycheck, digitally now, has a step in its monthly timesheet reporting process that could drive me mad, if I think about it too much. Every month I am handed a piece of paper to complete that says on it that I must complete it on the last day of each pay period, sign it, and turn it over to my supervisor.
What galls me is the apparent official power and pomposity of such a statement. It's not like I have a choice, this is one place where I must just stand there and be ordered around: Complete this on the last day of the pay period, and turn it in ... or else!
Except, in fourteen-plus years, I have not completed it on (or even after) the last day of the pay period. Instead, some official university requirements that I've never been able to understand always force me to complete it before that last day. Sometimes as early as two weeks prior to that last day, so when I complete it I am guessing whether I will really not be sick on the 29th or decide to take a vacation day on the 30th.
That really makes me uneasy. I am a reason- and logic-based person, not a faith-based person, and I like what I say or write to mean what it says if you hear or read it. And it also makes me suspect some of the other official requirements of the timesheet, like the insistence that I use a black pen. But that's another story.
It also lessens my respect for the institution, just a bit. I love my university and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's been a central feature of my life for 34 years. However, every month I complete a time sheet that looks like it was first typed on a manual typewriter and has been photocopied thousands of times since, during which time no intelligent person has since looked at it and analyzed its style or function. (I know that's probably not true, but....)
I don't trust Mieijer. I don't think that company would hesitate for a second to waste my time and that of all of its customers, if it thought it could gain an economic advantage. I do trust the university, though, and this timesheet pains me.
I think the problem is likely that at the university end of things there are only a handful of people who look at the entire process and at the content and the appearance of the forms. They're no doubt smart and dedicated, but just like "insider jargon" can mislead nonprofit association staff as to the perspectives of their members, the campus folks must look at that timesheet and see it from their own, professional perspective--which is not the perspective of the user.
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