My patience is often tested in April and May. Why? Because these are the months when I have to submit various annual returns to government bodies.
It is tedious to prepare the information for the returns. But my real objection is the systems. How can we still have systems this bad?
Maybe it's because these is no choice. If I don't like an online shopping site, I can use a different one. Banks care about your internet banking experience, because they want to keep you as a customer.
But the government? It doesn't care about your experience. Or it sets extremely low standards for its systems. Or the money for developers got diverted to someone's pocket.
The wrong things never change
I don't need to tell you about POPI. You know your systems must be secure. You know you must be careful with your passwords.
So how does the Department of Labour still get it so wrong? I can repeat word for word what I wrote in 2021:
*“It happened last year. It happened the year before. It happened again this year. The DoL site rejected my username and password combination — which I know is correct, because I use a password manager. So I had to reset my password. And guess what? DoL emailed me the old password in PLAIN TEXT!
And then I, like a careful user, reset my password. And guess what? DoL emailed me the new password in PLAIN TEXT!”*
Yes, it happened again. I've been complaining about this since 2018.
When not to POPI
And yet this same site sends me a OTP (one-time pin) to open the Letter of Good Standing, aka LoGS. Why?
The LoGS is a document that a company uses to prove to clients that it is in good standing with the Compensation Fund. It contains no confidential information. It doesn't need password protection. And I can't send clients a password-protected document.
FYI: it took 7 tries before I received the OTP.
When a phish is not a phish
Bad phishing emails are easy to spot. But many look like the real thing and are harder to identify.
Some companies test their developers regularly to make sure they can spot the phishers. You can test yourself with the OpenDNS quiz.
But these tests forget one thing. Some genuine government emails look exactly like bad phishing emails! From the generic "Dear customer" greeting, to the bad formatting and poor grammar. I had to rescue a relevant email from my trash because of this.
Beyond time to upgrade
The SARS e@syfile employer system is another bane in my life. Last year I found the solution. I spin up a Windows sandbox and install it there. That way I avoid the need to downgrade my Java version to make it work.
The Windows sandbox doesn't have a PDF reader, so I installed the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader. (I prefer other PDF readers, but SARS doesn't.) The e@syfile system told me my version of Adobe Reader was too old. Sigh.
The application's help file explains how to upgrade to the 2010 version. Outdated much?
Kittens will help
I came across a reference to Mahjong in a novel the other day. I hadn't played it in years, so I downloaded a free app.
One of the (many) in-app ads is for a Solitaire card game. The ad shows a row of cute kittens. I have no idea what kittens have to do with card games. Maybe the government should add pictures of kittens to its sites. They'll still look like they were written for Windows 95, but at least I'll have an "Aw cute" moment to counter my frustration.
I'd love to hear your comments.