If you ever want to experience what the worst of tech has to offer, try renting a UHaul vehicle in a rush over the weekend using their virtual check-in feature. It's SO BAD that it makes one immediately want to quit tech and live in the woods.
As part of the rental process I had to give my phone number. At some point the employee says something like "You should get a text message with a link in a couple seconds, click the link and fill out the form and you'll be good to go."
To which I responded 'I don't have a smartphone, I can't click a link. How else can I fill out the form?'
Apparently there was no other way. He thought about it for a minute, then just took a picture of my license and handed me the keys. It's been 3 years and I never heard anything about it, so I figure I got lucky. I just know that if I ever find myself in that situation again karma will catch up with me and it will be a big issue.
What happened to the days of signing some papers on a clipboard?
I'm so curious about this; it is nearly universal that software engineers threaten this. I constantly tell my colleagues that I am quitting to start woodworking in a cabin in British Columbia.
My theory is that we are comprised of people who love building and making things, yet at the end of the day we don't have anything tangible to show. Like, my parents (nearing 80 years old) barely understand what I do or how software engineering works, though they are computer-literate. Going back 2 generations and it is incomprehensible magic. But, if I built a cabin or a cabinet or a wooden spoon, I could have a meaningful conversation about it with someone from the last Ice Age (language barriers aside). Maybe it is just staring at a screen 8 hours+ per day leaves the ancient part of the brain wanting.
Software engineers get lost and subsumed into the virtual world, so I don't think it's surprising we look for and pine for ways to exit.
The "leave tech and find some pastoral life" is a very tempting dream.
I know a lot of technologists who do something physical with their hobby time. Woodworking is top of the list... I know a blacksmith. There are quite a few who do painting (and the entire subset of spending that excess disposable income on plastic to paint).
Its to have something that has permanence when the lights are turned off.
One of these days I'll do it! I'll never open another JIRA ticket again!
Oh not to mention UPS and inability to enter entry code to their system as they did not pass my phone number or email to them. I did have tracking number, but that clearly is not enough when you can no clearly contact customer. So only option to give the code to them that was to call them...
Like utterly broken flows. Often it feels that no one considers the extremely common corner cases.
Wait. What? There are dozens of threads posted here daily about the new AI model, laying off huge swaths of junior engineering roles, and vibe coding as engineering, dev-ops, and quality control.
Amtrak is a perfect example too. An American monopoly, an established near-ancient technology, and tech bolted on that make something simple worse and complicated. Trains have been figured out for 150 years, welcome to the age of AI.
Gave up. Just left the old phone plugged in and added the iPhone as a companion device.
40 years of software development, this is the worst piece of dogshit software I've ever encountered.