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Previous: Misused apostrophes | Main | Next: Washington Mutual bank sign
September 6, 2004 12:47 AM
Broken: BC, Canada government site
Ric Mazereeuw writes from British Columbia, Canada:
The British Columbia government requires companies file their annual reports online.
One benefit claimed is that "It improves service to our customers, since they can submit their report electronically."
Now check out the system hours on their home page...
We are open from 6am to 8pm
Monday to Saturday, including statutory holidays.
That's right... an automated web site that takes evenings and Sundays off...
University of Toronto's web system for students (registration for courses and the like) is similarily broken. Here's the schedule: https://www.rosi.utoronto.ca/hours.html
Not necessarily broken. Some services are taken off line to perform maintenance and updates.
However, I agree that in order to provide an execptional service these websites should be available 24/7 all year round.
Maybe it isn't an automated process and there's a room full of monkeys that process the incoming _POST variables and manaully enter it into their internal system.
=D
Now that's government efficiency!
My university's student account system had similar restricted hours in the past. The informational site said the restricted hours were to prevent hacking and misuse of the system. However, it was really annoying, because I often wanted to use the system when I was up late or on weekends, which was exactly when it was unavaliable.
They gradually added more and more hours until it was online all the time, except for a weekly maintenence.
A similar thing goes with Ontario's Ministry of Transportation "Online Road-test booking". Evenings and weekends off... Gee, what a life! I guess the poor servers picketed for more vacation :P
*eyeroll*
The website for Florida Atlantic University is only avaiable from 7.15am to 10pm and is closed on Sundays. Most students are just waking up at 10pm. Apparently the daily "Maintenence" takes 9 hours everyday and all day Sunday.
My school's course registration site has similar restrictions, but it's not "We're only up between X and Y", it's "We're pretty much guaranteed to be up between X and Y, but maintenance can happen any time outside of that, so outside those hours all bets are off"
My (former) health insurance company had the same policy for its "24-hour automated phone-response" system. I called the 24-hour 800 number and got "Please call back between the hours of 7am and 7pm Monday through Friday." It also reminds me of a gas station here locally that closes the store at 10pm but leaves the gas pumps on all night for "pay at the pump" customers. However, don't try getting gas there on Christmas Day... they shut off the pumps. Broken....
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Previous: Misused apostrophes | Main | Next: Washington Mutual bank sign
The same thing happens in most bank websites in Argentina... :-(
Posted by: Diego at September 6, 2004 09:31 AM