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Demotivators?
Jun. 28th, 2007 10:00 amWhen you really don't want one of those happy little pictures on the wall, try these:
http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10877_11-4505-1.html
http://content.techrepublic.com.com/2346-10877_11-4505-1.html
Jun. 28th, 2007
Is it news or just creaky?
Jun. 28th, 2007 10:08 pmThere's been a recent spate of news stories here in Japan concerning social security, of all things. It turns out that some people went to their local representatives and asked about their benefits, and were told that . . . oh, there's no record of that period when you claim to have worked for a small company. Or we don't have any record of this period - oh, you were married then? And so forth, enough that the news folks got busy digging into it.
With the growing grey population, finding problems with social security records is a real concern. However, it isn't quite clear whether there are real problems or not. Mostly, the news folks have dug out that the older records are in paper in local prefecture offices, or on microfilm in one place, or otherwise not easily accessible. This means that when a certain percentage of the population asks the new computerized systems about their history, the answer comes back in pieces, with various gaps. Apparently the staff does say that they can check with the various earlier offices and put it together, but it isn't all online and instantly correct right now.
Unfortunately, some people don't hear the "please wait a while." And, of course, there are some real gaps in this kind of transitional record keeping. After all, we're talking 30 or 40 years of records, possibly involving several offices - what are the odds that they managed to get it all straight? And if a small corporation 25 years ago fudged the payments and then folded, what can anyone do?
So it's a mess. And it won't be straightened out easily, although it appears that the social security folks really are trying. But plowing through those warehouses of paper files -- now that's ugly.
Weekend before last, we even had a run on the social security information! Overloaded their internal servers, and caused everyone to fret. But you know, once the panic wore off, the data was still as complete (or incomplete) as before.
When the news folks stir up a panic and cause an outage, is that news or just boiling the pot?
With the growing grey population, finding problems with social security records is a real concern. However, it isn't quite clear whether there are real problems or not. Mostly, the news folks have dug out that the older records are in paper in local prefecture offices, or on microfilm in one place, or otherwise not easily accessible. This means that when a certain percentage of the population asks the new computerized systems about their history, the answer comes back in pieces, with various gaps. Apparently the staff does say that they can check with the various earlier offices and put it together, but it isn't all online and instantly correct right now.
Unfortunately, some people don't hear the "please wait a while." And, of course, there are some real gaps in this kind of transitional record keeping. After all, we're talking 30 or 40 years of records, possibly involving several offices - what are the odds that they managed to get it all straight? And if a small corporation 25 years ago fudged the payments and then folded, what can anyone do?
So it's a mess. And it won't be straightened out easily, although it appears that the social security folks really are trying. But plowing through those warehouses of paper files -- now that's ugly.
Weekend before last, we even had a run on the social security information! Overloaded their internal servers, and caused everyone to fret. But you know, once the panic wore off, the data was still as complete (or incomplete) as before.
When the news folks stir up a panic and cause an outage, is that news or just boiling the pot?