Come on it’s, a loan application not rocket science

I may have to start a series based on this style of complaint. Having worked with financial software for the last 2 years I know that it is generally designed to be as fool proof as possible. This means that end users are only given a few specific fields at a time to fill in, as many options as possible use drop down boxes, radial buttons, checks, and pre-populated lists. All of this is to take a formerly complex task and simplify it so you no longer need specialist to do this. This cuts training and employee cost for financial institutions. The mortgage industry is a leader in this area. With the housing bubble over the last ¾ decade they needed more people on board as fast as possible to process all of the loan applications; the same applications that led to the avalanche of defaults beginning mid last year. So it was a surprise for me when a company I do a lot of business with couldn’t get it right.

To begin though I need to step back and mention that the city sent me an ever so friendly letter this winter with a list of home improvements I had to have done by summer. I don’t mind the target a different neighborhood every year. The tactic was first used in St. Paul and it worked so well that Minneapolis copied. However for me this means that I need to push some things to the top of the list. One of these is the big job of having the house resided. This is one job like roofing I don’t want to do myself. Therefore I decided to get a home equity loan to cover the costs. Also if I don’t make these fixes by mid-summer I get fined and eventually the city may send contractors to do it for me then add it to my tax bill. This certainly isn’t something you want to happen as city contractors normally aren’t the cheapest people to have do work.

A few months ago while I was online with my insurance agent they mentioned – due to the fact they also run a bank – that I was pre-approved for a home equity loan or line of credit at a certain rate. I remembered this a month ago when I started applying for loans and checked their rates against all the banks I do business with. They were the cheapest. So the application is actually completed via a website, and I have to admit I started the comedy of errors that was to follow. I put my gross bi-weekly pay in for where I should have put my monthly gross. So I called them up and had this corrected. A few days later I was contacted to complete the process. A nice loan officer asked me some questions, I answered and she overnighted me the papers. Even with overnight I am only able to get them on weekends though because of traveling. Well when they came instead of adding my wife’s name to the paper work they put my dad’s name on the mortgage. This baffled me, but they are not open on weekends so I had to wait to call and find out what was going on.

Well after traveling, checking in with my managers, and doing some work the following Monday I phoned up my loan officer. Got a voicemail “where she says leave a detailed message and I will back to you by the end of business”, so I did. But she didn’t. Two days later she got a hold of me apologized and sent more paper’s out. Well, when they hadn’t arrived by Thursday I called again, she told me she had forgotten to hit print. Can we say strike one and two. That Saturday when I did get the papers again they had the wrong name on them. The loan officer had butchered my wife’s name so bad that it wasn’t even close. So again I had to wait until Monday to call. Strike three.

Monday I called and asked to talk to a supervisor. Really I thought most of this was funny but I didn’t want someone who couldn’t get the correct name on a document working on my account. Well no supervisor was available but I was put through to their voicemail. Strike four. Again the message said they would get back to me by the end of the day. I left a message, they didn’t make the end of the day. Again two day’s later I received a call back but it was over the dinner hour and I didn’t see the call so they left a VM. Strike five. So the next day I left them a pretty harsh message and decided to check out the number 2 choice of loan providers my credit union.

So on Wednesday I drove to the credit union, turned out they could beat the rate at the first company and we did the application right there. The next day the paper work was ready. By now the first company had called and made corrections and sent new papers that would arrive in a couple days. I was no longer interested. I ended up getting a better loan at a better price; a nice happy ending in my opinion. What is funny though is that it took getting the paper work printed several times at the credit union as well. But since I was onsite they could correct it while I waited and we signed right there.

If the first company was just able to put the correct name on the correct line of 2 documents they would have had a decent size piece of my business. Instead I think I am going to avoid most their banking services, even if the credit card and insurance I have with them have been the best customer service that I get. Well hopefully dealing with contractors will be a better story.

Mormons in the hood

I saw a funny scene today. At least I think it is a funny. My current client is certainly not in the best part of town. In the year I have been there we have had 3 cars stolen from the parking lot, a couple of muggings, a couple of fights on the side walk out side the premises, the cops are routinely in the area talking to or picking people from the neighborhood up, and we even saw a guy in a van get busted for selling counterfeit or stolen toys last Christmas. I personally always make a point of parking in the fenced in area and not leaving alone if I stay past dark. Though this second project is much further from where most of the trouble is.

So today on my daily drive from the client back to the hotel through the hood, I saw what I thought was a funny site – two Mormons out doing their door to door gig. While I have to admit I don’t know much about Mormons, I do know that they are all required to go on a mission at one point or another. A lot of times this includes going door to door to talk to people about there belief. I assume this is what they were doing, I have to think these two may have been better off if they had gone to a third world country than this part of Milwaukee. They were quite the site both with the black name tags, back packs, black pants, black tie, and white short sleeve pressed button up shirt. So while I admire their dedication to their religion I don’t know if what they are doing is the smartest thing.

So anyway I guess I just chalk this up to funny things that I have seen.

Cub’s Fans can’t drive and these seats stink, but thanks for the freebee anyway

Well ok not all Cub’s fans stick. I just like to generalize from time to time. A week and a half ago my project team went to the Cubs V. Brewer’s game at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Half the project team is from Chicago and drive up for work so we had a bunch of Cub’s fans with us. These aren’t the people that were a pain. The ones that got to me were the ones cut me off every three seconds in the line to park the car. I also wasn’t so happy with all the loud and drunk fans either. I don’t get it I went to a game at Wrigley back in May and the fans there were all cool, I guess when they leave town it is a ticket to misbehave. That’s ok I love going to free baseball games. Or hockey, basketball, football; really any free event is a good one in my books.

This game was funny though because our seats were beyond nose bleed. If you have ever seen a game on TV for the Brewers you will notice way out behind left field high in the air is a stand for the Brewer’s mascot to watch the game and do crazy things. Well if you look further to the left and much higher that is where we were sitting. While Miller Park is a great stadium I don’t know what they where thinking when they designed these seats. They are so far back and because of the mascot’s box you can’t see a lot of the field. In fact we only knew when a home run was hit by watching the runner circle the bases. We didn’t even have a view of the jumbo-tron! It is amazing such seats exist in a stadium built in the last 20 years.

However the game was quite good. There were several home runs, some really tight plays, stolen bases, and anything else you could hope for in a ball game. And of course the best part, it was free! So even with the all the lame Cub’s fans from out of town and the bad seats, it was a great team outing and I had a good time watching the game. Also I now have another park checked off on the list. I wonder how many different cities I can watch ball games in. The list so far is:
Minneapolis - Twins
St. Paul - Saints
Cincinnati – Reds
Chicago – Cubs
Milwaukee – Brewers
Lincoln – Saltdogs (unaffiliated with MLB)

I guess this is a good start but I think I need to switch projects before the end of the year so I can get another team/stadium or two.

Come on it’s, flowers not rocket science

Ok I know it is quite a while after the fact, but I have to say I had the strangest experience with FTD on Mother’s day. I use FTD quite a few times a year. Because I travel I don’t always get to be there for important things such as Valentine’s day, Birthdays, Mother’s day, etc. So I try my best to at least do something to show that I wish I could be there. A lot of the time this leads me to FTD. As everyone knows with FTD you can have flowers and/or gifts delivered to basically anywhere in the world. On top of that the prices are too ridiculous. In fact on top of there good service and prices they also offer promotions through the hotels and airlines rewards systems so I can actually work towards earning free flights or hotel stays when I use them. Until a month ago I had never had an issue with there service. I do have to say though like any company they can let things fall through the cracks, and that is what they did.

Mother’s day this year came the same weekend as our wedding. We didn’t really pick the day of our wedding for any specific reason but rather because the site we wanted to use was open. So Friday night we got married, Saturday we ran around with family, and Sunday was mother’s day. We gave my mom a card that day and wished her a happy Mother’s day as she was in town. We also thought it would be nice to have flower’s waiting for her at home the next day. So I got on the computer and went to Marriott’s website, logged in and navigated to FTD.com via the Marriott’s Rewards portal (so I could earn 10 points a dollar). I picked out some flowers in my price range and completed the transaction. Normally this would have been enough.

So when Monday night came and went without mention from my mom that the flowers came, we became suspicious. So I called my mom and she said they didn’t come. I felt a little bad because I had woke her up to ask, but it was only 9pm Seattle time so I didn’t feel too bad. After calling my mom I called FTD whereby I was informed that the florist didn’t have the correct vase so they sent the order back to FTD to find a different florist. FTD the dropped the ball and did not get another florist lined up. What got to me was how easy it was for there system to let them drop the ball. We are talking about delivering flowers, not brain surgery or rocket science. You send the order and if you don’t get a delivery confirmation you follow up. It’s sad that they can start to follow up and let the ball drop.

To FTD’s credit they admitted there mistakes right away. Gave me back the fee they charged and resent the order with orders to substitute the vase if need be. However they messed up again. Though this time it was in our favor; the order was sent to two florists! So my Mom received two arrangements with two vases. I didn’t get charged a dime. If it wasn’t flowers we would have tried to send one order back but as it is flowers are perishable so she got to keep both. I just find it amusing that something as simple as a flower order could get screwed up twice. In the end it worked out, I will continue to use FTD. Heck maybe all my orders will get double delivery in the future…

Well if anything goes wrong it must our fault

If you are in to dumb movies like I am you have certainly watch the South Park movie. In this movie part of the plot is setup by parents getting up set at Canadian actors for using fowl language. This quickly digresses into a song and dance routine where Canada is blamed for all of America’s woes - at least in South Park. Later in the film this becomes justification for going to war with Canada. In the last few months I have gained new appreciation for this comedy. Because I have now routinely become the victim of scapegoating (yes I know it’s not a word, but it should be). I was brought on to my current role –performance testing- because on a previous project I had gained some knowledge of a toolset being used. This caused me to get dragged into a project that really has nothing to do what my line of work is. Inevitably I was drawn into integration testing because the projects timeline was lengthen and I could not do any more work on my role for a month. This is when the fun began.

Typically integration testing is done to verify that an entire system works and you can complete the business functions it was designed to do. Most developers only test there particular part of the system and when all the pieces are put together it must be tested as a whole. Unlike the testing developers do this is just functional testing or business process testing. Can I take and order, ship it, bill it, and handle returns for instance. Can I close the books at the end of the month. It is always painful and there is never enough time put into it. The problem on this project for this client is the fact that they did not have the correct people testing it. Instead of having the people that designed the system create the testing scenarios/scripts and then have the business test the system, as would be the normal procedure, they created a testing team to do this. So now there is a team that must verify that everything works that has not power to make changes and doesn’t have the knowledge of how everything is supposed to behave in the first place.

Well we went ahead and designed the scripts, created data, and organized all of the testing. I thought we did a good job for the limited resources we had. However no matter what happen, no matter how well things went (and they actually went very well) our team lead kept saying how bad of a job we did and how everything was our fault. The functional changed something and didn’t tell us – Our fault. The developers screwed something up – Our Fault. The testers had questions – well the script was bad and it was – Our Fault. The data was processed in the right order because and outside vendor was incompetent – Our Fault. In fact our lead took all the bad things on the project and assumed they were are fault. And told us as much. Compared to a decent leader that would have pushed back and said, well our outside vender is incompetent, we have to assume a learning curve, and we need more integration with the functional team she would say AHHHH WE SCREWED UP.

The funnies thing about this is that we actually got through this with fewer problems than most projects. The number of issues was actually quite small, the defects were turned around quickly, and we finished not on time but ahead of schedule. Yet we screwed everything up! By the end we had actually downloaded the song from South Park and dubbed in “Testing Team” everywhere the said Blame “Canada”. It became our theme song because even though we honestly saved the project nobody cared; they just kept point fingers at us in case it failed so if it did they could say it wasn’t there fault. I just wish we had stronger management with the backbone to say “it’s not their fault get your own $h!t together! I can’t wait to get off this project and work for a decent manager again. I didn’t realize HOW big of a difference it is.