Me: Did you identify who those records belong to?
Business: Sure. Here are the names.
Me: Names aren't unique. I need you to tell me the identifiers these assign to.
Business: No. You do it, using names.
Me: ....
Folks, that's literally impossible.
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Well, they're only asking you to tell them that you've done it with 100% accuracy. They don't care whether you actually do it with any accuracy at all, because all they want is the ability to shift the blame to you later.
ReplyDeleteSo technically what they're asking is not only possible, but easy.
Best advice I've ever gotten: If it's that easy, you probably shouldn't do it that way.
ReplyDeleteSo you are asking for something like an employee ID number or e-mail?
ReplyDeleteWe are a consortium of travel agencies, and we have about 5,000 agencies. If you give me the name of an Agency, "Crystal's Travel!", that's not helpful. We have a unique identifier we use internally, called Travel Agency Number (TAN)., which is what I want them to give me.
ReplyDeleteNot fucking name. Fuck names. And double-fuck misspelled names.
Sounds like you need to develop something to turn names into IDs maybe so sort of software... ;)
ReplyDeletePatty Kirsch I mean, yes. It should be that when they put in a name, they MUST select an ID. That's the goal. That's part of the medium-term vision.
ReplyDeleteAh! Yes, I understand... we have a grant tracking system and have that issue with various contracting agencies. Does someone putting in "Department of Education" mean the US Department of Education? The PA Department of Education? Some /other/ thing called department of Education? Just give me the damn DUNS number!
ReplyDeleteCynical Tony: They'll still send you an Excel spreadsheet of non-unique names, in several different blocks each formatted in a different way.
ReplyDeleteHeck, they'll ask you to write that report for them.
Exactly, Matt Johnson. People should ALWAYS HAVE TO uniquely identify the entity.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Predictably, they already do that. And today, asked me to change the format for just some of them.
ReplyDelete>sigh< It's like Lily Tomlin said, no matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
ReplyDeleteAnd, also: Don't attribute to malice what is properly explained by stupidity and laziness. Those two are the driving factors of a lot of ills, I suspect.
ReplyDelete