End-User Computing – \”Let\’s go Shopping !\”
First, let me say that I\’ve never been to a Wal-Mart. Ever. And, bluntly, I don\’t intend to go to one either – they\’re full of very scary things (if the Internet is to be believed).
Secondly, in case you were wondering, this post is decidedly non-technical. What you\’re about to read is an opinion, a postulation, an analogy if you will, so I crave your indulgence on this one. Here goes.
I am, like most people, familiar with the concept of \’everything for everybody\’. What I\’m not so keen on is how some organisations may wish to physicalise that concept.
In the case of the larger \’super-centers\’, there\’s a whole load of stuff behind those walls. Some of it wonderful, some of it weird, and some of it of questionable value. All you have to do is enter the temple through those oh-so-quiet and oh-so-inviting doors, and nirvana lies within. Simples.
Where am I going with this ? I can see the consternation from here. (And, seriously, you consider THAT suitable attire for surfing the internet ? You never know who\’s watching)
Bear with me.
So, you go into the store. You wander around looking for stuff you need. You buy just what you need, perhaps some stuff that you didn\’t know you needed, and an air-freshener that was on offer, as you quite like the fragrance. But you know you\’re not going to get everything in the cart, and you can always come back another day for the stuff you missed or that was not yet in stock.
If you\’re a careful shopper, you\’ve organised the cart contents in some sort of logical order that would help you when you get to the checkout, and ultimately taking your booty back to your chosen transport method (or is it just me that does this ?)
Having \’shopped-out\’, you queue up at the checkout, and you occasionally sneak a glance at the other shoppers carts to see what they\’ve got that you didn\’t (again, is that just me ?).
What you\’ll see there is that some people aren\’t as fastidious as you when it comes to loading up the cart. There\’s beer on top of the bread and eggs, a sack of potatoes on top of the pastries, and it seems that the ketchup is making a last bid for freedom from the sides of the squeezy bottle.
There\’s also always someone who\’s got something that you wouldn\’t normally think you could buy in a superstore. Like a tractor. Whatever – as long as it\’s in the cart, they can buy it, right ?
Notwithstanding the state of the queue, there\’s a guy in front of you having some serious difficulty getting his stuff onto the conveyer belt. You want to do the good neighbor thing and help him out, but your cart has got stability issues, and if you let go of it for a second, it\’ll go over. The you\’ll have the embarrasment of calling a GC (sorry, janitor) over to pick up your stuff while you go and get some more. So you stay put. Wasting time.
Finally, the guy in front gets all his stuff on the belt. Yay ! Only, his credit card gets declined because he\’s way over his limit, and he\’s only got enough cash for about half the stuff he\’s bought. So him and the cashier start sifting through what he\’s got, call over another assistant to help out, then another to remove items that he certainly doesn\’t want back to the shelves they came from. All of this adds pressure to the other lines by diverting staff to yours, so the other shoppers start to get a bit grumpy too.
After some time, and some indignant huffing by you (and by now the several dozen others in your particular queue), the guy completes the sale, and trundles off without a care in the world, oblivious to the chaos and confusion that he\’s left behind.
And, dear reader, THAT is precisley why THIS DBA is very VERY nervous about \”End-User Computing\”. Thanks for reading.
Back soon…
The Modern Dataist 