On 2 Oct 02, at 6:26, Bill Lear wrote:
> I've had some experience with this sort of technology, to use a poor
> term (it has more to do with organization of work). The problem with
> this explanation is that it assumes "remote links" do not degrade the
> efficiency of the job. Direct and spontaneous face-to-face human
> contact is the very best way to exchange information known to the
> universe. Put it through a "video feed" or conference call, and a lot
> gets lost.
I had some experience with this a couple of months ago. A
colleague from Europe needed an visa for an Asian country that his
travel agent had forgotten to apply for. He was about to leave in
about two weeks and had to send his passport back to Europe to
have the visa added. He sent it back via UPS which promised two
day delivery. The visa was added and sent back via UPS. On
arriving in Winnipeg on a Thursday, it was intercepted by Canada
Customs (not surprisingly) who phoned me (it was sent to my
address) to make sure it was legitimate. I explained the situation
to the customs clerk who notified UPS that it could be picked up
and delivered.
Friday, it didn't arrive and my friend was flying out the next
thursday. I went to contact the local office of UPS to see where it
was (computer tracing). However, there is no local office, only a 1-
800 number for a tel-centre located somewhere in Atlantic Canada
who didn't have a clue about what happened to -- but promised to
look into it and call me back -- which they never did. I called again
the following day. Still no news and, more importantly, no way
they could check where it was in Winnipeg because they had no
contact with the local operation. It didn't arrive on Monday. I called
again. No information. It didn't arrive on Tues -- still couldn't help.
It arrived finally Wednesday -- 5 days to get across Winnipeg from
the airport -- a 20 minute drive. And at no time could the distant
call centre trace what happened to it because they had no contact
with the local people. Nor was there any way I could because they
do not have a local office -- all long distance monitoring.
Needless to say, I will never use UPS again -- but the real villain of
the piece was the attempt to control and monitor routing and
delivery by long-distance computer/call centre operations. Just
imagine what could happen if the whole west coast longshore
operations were subject to such problems.
Paul
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
