My frustrations…
Jan. 24, 2007 by ravishan
I spent about an hour at Quest Diagnostics in Middletown waiting for them to draw blood from me for a blood test… I had to fast before the test… I woke up at 5:30, reached the place at 7:30 and got called in at 8:30. That is three hours of no eating or drinking – (well, I cheated, I had a cup of coffee at 5:45!!!). So, what does this has to do with technology, you ask… probably nothing…
This operation is a classic example of how not to run a service organization. As you walk in, you are supposed to pick up a? number. I am glad that one of the other people waiting told me to do so. My number was 23 and I saw a woman holding number 15. I counted and found only 6 others… I attributed the counting problems to my age and lack of breakfast… But then I remembered that when you are in that state, you are supposed to see more people than there really are.
I obeyed their sign for no cell phone usage and missed 10 calls from Nalini. Unable to reach me, she called a good friend of ours, who tried calling me several times. Tired of waiting, I went outside to check my emails (people thought I was going out to smoke)… I saw 13 missed calls…
Then numbers were called in and we all found out that a few numbers were missing in between, so I did count fine after all… I go to the window and give all relevant information and the person types them in using one finger, makes a fwe mistakes because of my unusual name. Waits for a while and cannot find anything about me on the computer… Frustrated, he asks me if I had been there before. I said no (and muttered that I do not wish to come back). Frustrated, he asks for my information all over, uses the same one finger typing, makes mistakes etc. etc. It took a fair amount of time to go through this. Then, I ask if the results will be sent to the doctor on time for my appointment tomorrow evening. And the person says ” I have no idea… We only draw blood here. Prohealth does the lab work. It usually takes 2-3 days”.
Then I finally get called in. The phlebotomist ( a new word I learned there today) spent a few seconds searching for the vein and drew blood. She was pretty clumsy… When she took out the needle, the blood was still coming out a fair amount and I was advised that “it happens”…
As I was providing the information to the receptionist, I was wondering why is it that we still have to fill out all these forms everywhere we go – financial institutions, doctor’s office, medical lab, and many more places. In doctor’s offices you have to do it annually. Why would it be so hard for us to develop a technology where all information is on a card that we carry around and swipe? We all guard our credit cards now, so I would think we would do the same with this ID card… And when we move, we simply pay a fee to update the info on the card… The amount of resources wasted in repeating this information and the inefficiencies it brings to the system is mind boggling… I can’t believe that we cannot come up with a system which takes much less than an hour for a blood test…
While at it, I love the self checkout in Stop & Shop. However, the act of signing on the tablet like device is a joke. It adds a few seconds to the process and I don’t see any point to it. Half the time, the device is unclean and dysfunctional and what you sign has NOTHING to do with what appears on the screen. So, why not get rid of it?
If you reached this far, I want to thank you for your patience….
This is your most amusing!
At some stores lately I have not had to sign for amounts
I actually avoid the self-checkout lanes in grocery stores. Oh, I didn’t used to – in fact ,the first time I came across one I thought it was the bee’s knees. Surely this will help me checkout quickly and keep that pesky “human interaction” down to a minimum, I thought to myself. So I naively approached it, my eyes full of starry wonder and hope. Ahh, automation.
I soon learned that attempting to not do things *exactly* according to their plan breaks the whole system. Fantastically. I managed to require intervention from store employees twice to purchase ~$30 worth of groceries and it took me around twice as long as it would have to wait in line. Their puzzled faces were entertaining. I’ve not approached one of these horrific machines again, seeing that I’ve wasted too much of my life wrestling with machines as it is. (Luckily, I don’t have to in my day to day much)
See, in this particular implementation, they wanted me to swipe, and then place in the convenient plastic bag past the swipe thing… which is all well and good unless you bring your own bags to the store. Even though they don’t make it clear anywhere, the “please place your item in the plastic bag” I saw displayed upon the screen wasn’t a polite suggestion, it was an order of the highest degree. They should have perhaps had the statement accompanied by a stern looking man in military grab gesturing with his rifle to make the message more clear. Apparently there’s some sort of weighing device to make sure that I’m not claiming I have a stick of gum and actually purchasing a gold brick. I picked up on this fairly quickly, but correcting it was non-trivial and involved alot of working around the machine. But even so, I still did not want to use plastic bags, since I have no compelling reason to melt the icebergs any more rapidly than I need to. So I tossed my backpack and/or canvas bag in the location so that I could properly load them, and did so, but apparently the extra weight of these devices threw it off as well. Employees kept coming over to reset it when the machine kept “losing” what I was doing, and finally I had to just accept that I was not going to be able to leave the store unless I took their plastic bags with me.
I keep one from this day in my kitchen so that I never forget and become seduced by the sweet siren’s song of automation again.
In short, in case anyone was wondering what my point is, I don’t believe we’re at a point where automation can be achieved in many things (even something as simple as buying groceries) without having to become automated ourselves. Will we be able to come up with such technology? I hope so, because some of what we go through is downright silly and inefficient. But until I can check out myself at a grocery store without jumping through hoops… I’ll just wait in line.
don’t use third-party services, they are very inefficient…kind of like over normalizing tables, it seems like a good idea in some ways in the design phase (although I can’t understand why), but not so good in implementation. you always get the best service, and the best nurses, using the hospital lab.
I was discussing with my friend just yesterday about the inefficiencies of having to carry multiple things…carry just one fob which has credit card, medical, car, etc. information…secured in some way. this would be the cat’s meow…unfortunately we’re not there yet, hopefully soon.