On August 4, 2021, the Web site for renewing a Global Entry card tells me that I can’t start the renewal process until September 28, 2020:
One for the textbook chapters on the merits of the IF statement…
The site did not get better. On nearly every page, before I started answering questions, I would be greeted with a banner at the top:
The plus side of coronapanic:
And the renewal might involve a “remote virtual interview”.
What government programmers? There aren’t any. Everything is contracted out now, so blame the contractors, and/or the government oversight that didn’t test all this. But then someone would have had to be smart enough to set the date forward past someone’s GE expiring and test that. Testing is also contracted out, to the same contractor probably. Oh well. The contractor is probably using some massive JS framework cobbled together with an Oracle database they’re paying billions for instead of using an old IBM mainframe and COBOL on the back end.
Oh, and the contractor was probably the lowest bidder …
Nope the winning contractor was the bureaucrat’s drinking buddy. That how it works in the real life.
What do you need? A time machine! When do you need it? It doesn’t matter.
It’s easy and cheap for outsiders to mock governmental computing blunders… so I’ll join in. Here’s another Coronapanic-related example, where the task of “adding up numbers to arrive at a total” was beyond the abilities of the bureaucrats.
I did this two weeks ago. I assumed that message was to weed out people who actually follow government instructions.
And it is not like this is limited to government websites, I am about nine hours in of call waiting and chat in trying to convince WDW that I did not book 3 rooms for only me to stay in.
Well, I just did this recently for entire family. They did renewal without interview for adults and in-person interview for kids. While website is not the most efficient out there, entire process was surprisingly effective and streamlined compared to what you would expect out of government just 10 years ago.
(Overall travel programs are surprisingly effectively managed)
BTW, I wanted to upgrade to Nexus, but had to abandon the idea because it’s impossible to schedule interview with the Canadians..,
Having a data entry “error” alert upon first arriving at a page is annoying. I understand that the intent is merely to indicate that all of the fields are not yet completed, but it’s hard not to take it personally when falsely accused of committing an “error.” 🙂
If at first you don’t succeed, go back a year and keep on sucking till you do!