Good Design – Bad Design

Some things are designed well, and others aren’t. Posts in this category are meant to call out both, and in the case of bad designs, provide comparison or contrast to the same function designed properly.

NON-RECURSIVE Algorithm for Enumerating Permutations

Posted by Justin A. Parr on August 29, 2020
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Math and Science. Leave a Comment

If you have a set of things, a permutation is a specific way that you can list those things.  Although algorithms exist to list every permutation, most of them rely on recursion – the calling of a function from within itself – which is horribly inefficient.

If you want a non-recursive algorithm that lists every permutation, keep reading…

Continue Reading

Thanks for Misusing My Personal Data!

Posted by Justin A. Parr on July 22, 2020
Posted in: Analyses and Responses, Good Design - Bad Design, Rants, The Light Side. Leave a Comment

Thanks for Misusing My Personal Data!

15 months ago, I bought a house.

During the course of that transaction, I had to disclose personal information to:

  • The finance company (two, since we dropped the first one)
  • The insurance company
  • The title company

I was required by Federal law to disclose information, including my:

  • Birthday and date
  • Social Security Number
  • Full Name
  • Address

You know, everything you might need to, you know, KNOW in order to steal my identity.

The business purpose for this was ostensibly to:

  • Obtain credit information
  • Review my financial records and assets
  • Report a financial transaction to the IRS

And, it was ostensibly to be used ONLY in the course of doing business.

A year passes…

I get a “Happy Birthday” e-mail from:

  • BOTH finance companies, even though I dropped one of them
  • The insurance company

In addition, I got an actual birthday card in the mail from the finance company that we ended up using.

Two decades ago, I would have thought “how quaint!” and moved on.

However, in the days of identity theft, YOUR BIRTHDAY is a significant piece of non-public personal data that should be closely guarded.

If I had gotten a birthday card at the beginning of the month with a note that says “Hey, happy birthday this month!” We know it’s your birthday, but we respect your privacy, so we’ve stored a generic representation of your personal data rather than your actual birthday.

Completely acceptable.

The reason storing my ACTUAL BIRTHDAY is NOT ACCEPTABLE, is twofold:

  1. YOU HAVE NO REASON TO STORE IT.  Once you’ve pulled my credit, sold me a house, and reported all of this to the government, there is no legitimate ongoing business need to continue to retain that information. 

    If your company stores data for which there is no valid, ongoing business purpose, you’re inviting a data breach.
  2. YOU PROBABLY AREN’T STORING IT SECURELY.  Is my birthday in a spreadsheet, stored on your laptop that you take to your house every night, which someone could steal from your house, or even worse, steal from the back seat of your car when you stop to pick up dinner on the way home? 

    Don’t laugh – I worked for a company where this exact situation happened – a spreadsheet containing personnel records, including social security numbers, was stored un-encrypted on the hard drive of a company-issued laptop that was stolen out of the back of someone’s car while parked in a restaurant parking lot.

    So hopefully not on a laptop, but, pursuant to GLBA or FCRA or HIPAA or a number of other laws, we should hope that my birthday is stored on a server that’s encrypted, logically-secured, physically-secured, logged, monitored, audited, sitting behind a firewall, etc.  More realistically, it’s stored “in the cloud” in your company’s sales system.

In addition to appearing completely unprofessional, the situation gives rise to the following, UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS:

  • What else are you storing without my knowledge and consent?
  • Who do you share it with?
  • Is it all stored by social security number?  I hope not, but that’s how businesses were run 30 years ago.

<RANT>

And…

If WE NEVER DID BUSINESS AT ALL because MY WIFE FIRED YOU, then you have NO LEGITIMATE PURPOSE for storing my data, and ZERO REASONS to send me a birthday e-mail.

You know who you are…

</RANT>

 

Best Practices

Most data breaches result when companies store data that they don’t need, or store improperly, or both.

  • Identify and catalog all systems that store Personally-Identifiable Information (PII) / Non-Public Personal Information (NPPI) / Protected Health Information (PHI) and other sensitive, personal data.
  • Make sure these systems are secured properly – the Federal government provides guidance on securing financial and healthcare data.
  • Audit the data regularly to make sure you are only storing what is needed for legitimate business purposes.  This includes purging old data, as well as ensuring that you are not unnecessarily, permanently storing personal data fields.
    • In most cases, a business is only required to retain business records for 3 to 7 years, depending on the type of business.  If you have data older than that, you need to delete it!
    • If you have data fields that are necessary, say, to perform a credit check, you need to store them temporarily, and then delete them when no longer needed.  Those data fields should live only as long as the transaction, and no longer.  3 months to a year would be more than sufficient.
  • If you want to store demographic information, or, you know, send birthday cards in a quaint attempt to appear personable, then at least use legitimate techniques to anonymize the data.
    • Don’t store the birth year at all (if not needed for demographics)
    • If you DO need demographic information, Round the birth year to a multiple of 5
      • y’=int(y/5)*5
      • if y’=y then y’=y’+5
    • In your CRM system, set everyone’s birthday to the first of the month.  If my birthday is April 22, store 4/1.

Send me a birthday card at the first of the month, and let me know that because you respect my privacy, you DO NOT STORE MY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY.

 

 

Frankenbolt (verb)

Posted by Justin A. Parr on March 6, 2020
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Justinisms. Leave a Comment

Frankenbolt (verb):

To assemble two or more completely dissimilar and poorly integrated components in to one unit, as in the patchwork manner of Frankenstein’s Monster.

Examples

  • “Reporting was an afterthought.  The developers obviously licensed a third-party component and simply Frankenbolted it in place at the last minute.”
  • “Every application should stick to its core mission.  Without a core mission, scope creep always results in an application with modules Frankenbolted all over it, like some bizarre freak-show attraction.”

 

Why Competition Shows Get it Wrong, And How to Fix It

Posted by Justin A. Parr on November 1, 2019
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design. Leave a Comment

We see competition shows all the time, such as “Top Chef”, “Next Iron Chef”, “Chopped”, all of the baking competition shows, and even shows such as “Forged in Fire” and “Next Mythbuster”, where the loser of each round gets eliminated.

The goal of the show is to find “the best” out of a group of competitors, but this is not the likely outcome.

Let’s look at why, and how to fix it.

Continue Reading

Unprofessional of the Year Award for 2019 Goes to Pizza Hut

Posted by Justin A. Parr on January 6, 2019
Posted in: Good Design - Bad Design, Justinisms, Rants. 1 comment

Unprofessional of the Year Award for 2019 Goes to Pizza Hut

  • On 1/5/2019, placed an order at 8:00 PM Saturday evening
  • Delivery time 9:45 PM.   OK, they’re busy, but I’ll get my pizza eventually.
  • 9:45 comes and goes, call the store multiple times for a status, and each time, they hang up on me.
  • Pizza shows up at 11:15 PM.  I bet THAT IS SOME HIGH QUALITY EATS.  The driver offered to give it to me for free, but at this point, I don’t want whatever it is, that they managed to put in a box and send to me, so I refused the delivery.

It’s not the driver’s fault, obviously, but to show up at someone’s door an hour and a half late, and over 3 hours after I placed my order, with no call back, and no confirmation is completely unprofessional.

The driver alluded to the fact that the manager completely botched things up, but at this point, after multiple calls to the store, and multiple calls to their call center, I really don’t care.

  • The manager needs to be fired for gross incompetence.  There is no excuse for a 3 hour delay.
  • The driver apologized.  I should have told her that you SHOULD NEVER apologize for someone else’s mistake.  She should be promoted, for at least attempting to handle the situation.
  • Whoever was hanging up on customers needs to be summarily fired.

 

How to Turn a Bad Situation in to a Win:

Bad things happen.

Things can go from “OK” to underwater very quickly, but as the manager, you have to think about what outcome you want, and what swift action you must take to achieve that outcome.

  • As soon as things started getting bad, the manager should have closed the store.  This would have prevented more orders from coming in, and new orders could either be routed to another store, or the customers could simply be told that delivery service is unavailable at this time due to foreseen circumstances, rather than wasting the customers’ time.
  • Any order delayed more than 15 minutes should necessitate a call to the customer.  Most stores have 23 or fewer phone lines (the number of DS0 lines that can be carried on a T1/DS1 line), so it’s entirely possible that the phone system was overloaded…  It’s up to the manager to take action!  Use a cell phone to start calling customers and setting expectations.  Tell the customer that there are unforeseen circumstances, don’t make excuses, set expectations, and then ask what the customer wants:  Delayed delivery with a discount, or cancel the order.  Give the customer the option.  Empowering the customer, and then closely managing expectations is how to turn a losing situation in to a winning one.

 

Corporate Changes Needed

  • There was no escalation path.  Although you could call the call center, they were only empowered to take an order, and they have no ability to check the order’s status or cancel it.  After a couple of phone calls, it became very clear that the call center is only able to transfer you to the local store…. which of course, was hanging up on customers.  The call center should be 100% empowered to handle order changes, provide status, and cancel an order.  Which brings us to the next problem….
  • Complete technological failure.
    • The Android app failed.  The order was originally placed via the Android app, and the app is supposed to provide the user with a near-realtime status.  However, the developers built the status function so that it ONLY runs on the newest versions of Android – I have 6.0, and the app simply tells me that my OS is out of date.  There is no update for my device, for a newer OS, so the message you’re sending is that, to be a Pizza Hut customer, I have to go out and buy a new phone every year.
    • The website failed.  After an order is placed, there is no way to get a status or contact the store via the website.  In the age of online, you have to call the store, on the phone to get a status.
    • The store’s point of sale / order entry system doesn’t seem to integrate with the rest of their technology.  How is it that, if by miracle I happen to be running the ordained version of Android, I can get a near-realtime status from the store, but neither the website, nor the call center can?  The answer from the website, the call center, and the application was: “Call the store for a status.”  Which would be OK, if the phones weren’t jammed.  Wouldn’t it be nice for the manager to be able to post a status, so that everyone sees it instantly:  “Due to unforseen circumstances, we are running behind.  We are not accepting new orders at this time, and if your order is delayed more than 15 minutes, we will be contacting you.”   BOOM, everyone is in sync.

 

Customer Perspective

Aside from being frustrated, I just wanted to get the food that I ordered.

After waiting 3 hours, which was an hour and a half PAST the delivery time, I had no idea if it was still on the way or if the order was cancelled, or if the store was on fire.

This is the point where some kind of escalation should have occurred, but there was no one to whom I could escalate.

After being hung up on, multiple times, and being told that the ONLY way to cancel my order is to call the store (and be hung up on), is extremely frustrating.  There is no valid situation, save for life-and-death, that it’s acceptable to hang up on a customer.

I turned off my lights, locked my door, and the delivery driver STILL knocked on my door, over an hour later!  How about a phone call?

The offer of getting the pizza for free was the right thing to do, but if things are going so poorly that you’re OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF LATE, how do I even know what’s in that box?  I don’t want some half-cooked crap with the wrong toppings.

At this point, as a customer, this seems like a breach of trust.

From my perspective, I can’t trust your service, which means that I also can’t trust your product.

All it would have taken is someone in authority who was empowered to fix the problem, to change that perception.

Kudos to the driver, who at least tried to take care of the situation, but it’s the manager who miserably failed, and with a fairly severe technology deficit, there was no way that anyone could help me, except the manager, who was too busy hanging up on people.

 

Dear Pizza Hut:

I’m happy to have you hire me to fix these problems for you.  I have a long track record of taking a complete train wreck like yours, and building a success story.

Short of that, I will no longer be a Pizza Hut customer.

 

 

Update – 2/6/2019

  • The next day, the credit card charge still indicated ‘pending’, so my wife called the store to discuss the matter with the day manager.  She explained that the delivery was refused, and was told “That sounds like a ‘YOU’ problem”, and the day manager hung up on her.
  • We both submitted corporate complaints, which were simply referred back to local store (GALLOWAY AVE., MESQUITE, TX), and then summarily ignored.
  • Fortunately, we disputed the charge with the credit card company, and got the charges reversed.  My next stop would have been the BBB.
  • It has been 30 days, and no one has responded to our complaints.  This is an unacceptable way to treat customers, and a horrible way to do business.

 

Update – 4/16/2019

  • I contacted the store on or about 4/13, just to see if they would be willing to discuss the matter.
  • When I asked to speak to the manager, I was told I WAS SPEAKING to the manager (this was an obvious lie), and this so-called manager apologized profusely.  He assured me that the entire previous management staff had been fired, and that there was all new management in place.
  • When I asked for the district manager’s contact information, the so-called manager told me he couldn’t give that information out.  I said, if he’s doing business, then surely he has a business contact.
  • He hung up on me
  • NO.  In reality, this was just another sh##bag employee, willing to lie to a customer.
  • ONLY AFTER I filed a complaint with the BBB (see below) did I get a half-hearted sorta kinda apology.
  • Now, I’m starting to think that the problem is with Pizza Hut Executive Management, and that the problem is systemic.

Dear Pizza Hut:

WHEN IS IT OK TO LIE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS?

WHEN IS IT OK TO ISSUE A HALF-HEARTED APOLOGY ONLY AFTER I INITIATE A COMPLAINT WITH THE BBB???

I can fix this for you…. you need to hire me in an executive position, so that I can fire everyone in customer service, and everyone in technology, and rebuild both departments.

Oh, and ONE MORE THING.  Let’s look at the tail end of that e-mail…

Disclaimer: This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual
and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message. Any disclosure,
copying, or distribution of this message, or taking any action based on it is strictly prohibited.

This is tacked on for the sole purpose of allowing Pizza Hut to bully me in to taking down any copy of this e-mail I may choose to post.

Well…. LET ME EDUCATE YOU.

  1. This entire communication is covered under the Fair Use Act, and I’m publishing it, accordingly
  2. I don’t use Facebook or Google for my blog.  Go ahead.  Threaten people.  There are no robots out there to help you silence me.
  3. If you issue a cease and desist, I will be obliged to post it here.  TRY ME.