A switch to a non-political topic and a rant about mal-designed technology.
Start with a simple enough objective; transfer my TFSA from RBC Royal Bank to RBC Direct Investing. Visit the Direct Investing store in Royal Bank Plaza and be advised "you can do that easiest on-line. Just go to open a new account, select transfer, fill out the forms, submit electronically, print a copy where signatures are required and drop off at any bank branch." That sounds easy.
OK, so finding and filling out the forms goes smoothly; get to penultimate step - review, print and submit. Error message pops-up "you must have Adobe Reader 9 or later installed ... go to .... download..blah blah.". BUT, I do have Adobe Reader 9 installed. RBC Direct Investing technology gurus don't seem to have taken Mac OS-X users into consideration. If you are on a Mac, the system doesn't recognize you have Adobe Reader. FWIW, the same result occurred with OS-X Snow Leopard and Lion, the two latest version of the Mac operating system. Big "F" to RBC Direct Investing for ignoring Mac users.
Try the same procedure on a Microsoft Windows machine with Adobe Reader 9 installed. Everything goes smoothly again until the preview, print and submit step; Adobe opens but refuses to continue until I upgrade to version 10. Don't want to do this now but OK. "Expletive"! Adobe decides for me to install some version of McAfee document virus scan as part of the upgrade, with no option to refuse. Being one of those who thinks installing any software from Adobe is akin to throwing newborns on the kitchen stove to teach them the danger of going near hot things, this is BAAAD. Having competing anti-virus software running on the same PC is a recipe for disasater so abort mission, navigate to the control panel to delete McAfee, etc and go through the process again.
This time the forms appear in preview with a warning in big, bold, red type: go back and fix the error on p4. Except of course there is no error or missing information on p4. Return to the end and try to print anyway. Now there are three error messages; seems some bug has started deleting account numbers and other information entered in step 1.
After aborting the mission, making four or five more repeat attempts in both Mac OS-X and Windows, give up and write a complaint letter on-line to RBC Direct Investing. Receive the usual idiotic response IT types like to give in broken English; "clear your cache and try again" what make of computer are you using? (duh! it's Mac OS-X - it's a Mac!), what version of the operating system and software? (duh! read the complaint, it's all in there).
So the first rant is against RBC Direct Investing for failing to test its on-line services to ensure they work cross-platform and for failing to ensure front-line personnel dealing with customer relations can communicate in English without insulting the client with stupid questions.
The second rant is against Adobe - Steve Jobs is right that they make some of the worst software in the industry - for dealing with the devil (in this care McAfee) and slipping his software into a software upgrade. That is just evil.
Today's mission; see if a real-life person at RBC Direct Investing can solve this, or.... maybe there's someone at the new ING Direct Store (coffee, snacks, WIFI, free desks and workspaces) has a better idea about helping me to save my money.
