I'm definitely not suggesting the system be shut down for improvements; I just want the humans who determine what it will do, won't do (and what to do if it crashes a propos your SF example) to put a little more thought, imagination and effort into it.
When we went to ten-digit dialing, the system was modified to sweetly warn us that soon we'd have to dial the area code too, but for now, the call would be put through. Then it changed to the same "you must dial… " w/ no help, as w/ the LD model. So the technology clearly was capable, and could be modified on the fly. It was the powers-that-be, managers, engineers, designers whoever that decided it would operate in this [customer unfriendly] way.
Not to waste a perfectly good dead horse, here's more of the same: I live in 416, some but not all 905 numbers are local ten-digit calls, some are long-distance. How do I know which ones? Only by getting it wrong, because only The System knows and can tell me. But does it give me the geographic info that might help me learn for the future, that this was a Hamilton number, say and they're LD? Uh-unh.
It ain't the technology, it's the technolgists—like the SF guys who didn't keep the old system running parallel 'til the new one was proven (something about egg and basket technology)—who're making us crazy.
When we went to ten-digit dialing, the system was modified to sweetly warn us that soon we'd have to dial the area code too, but for now, the call would be put through. Then it changed to the same "you must dial… " w/ no help, as w/ the LD model. So the technology clearly was capable, and could be modified on the fly. It was the powers-that-be, managers, engineers, designers whoever that decided it would operate in this [customer unfriendly] way.
Not to waste a perfectly good dead horse, here's more of the same: I live in 416, some but not all 905 numbers are local ten-digit calls, some are long-distance. How do I know which ones? Only by getting it wrong, because only The System knows and can tell me. But does it give me the geographic info that might help me learn for the future, that this was a Hamilton number, say and they're LD? Uh-unh.
It ain't the technology, it's the technolgists—like the SF guys who didn't keep the old system running parallel 'til the new one was proven (something about egg and basket technology)—who're making us crazy.
