Time bandits
Last year, MegaCorpCH changed its time recording system from SAP to Kronos. I'm not a fan of SAP, but all I can conclude, from my subsequent experience, is that the decision to move over to Kronos must've involved a bloody good game of golf, followed by a bloody good dinner, accompanied by copious amounts of a bloody good wine. Because, even in comparison to SAP's meagre user friendliness, Kronos is a sack of shit.
But, fear not, gentle reader, I'm not going to rant on Kronos' failings; it's only time-management software, after all, not a life-support system. It is, in the big scheme of things, merely an inconvenience; worse than a toilet, which is, at least, a convenience…BA-DA-BOOM!
Planned downtime, and lack of availability, is an integral part of corporate software support packages, to allow for maintenance, upgrades, and the like. In my experience, this has always been scheduled for weekends, to minimise disruption. But not Kronos! Oh no, their planned upgrade outage was today, Monday, as employees return from holiday and the weekend. How dumb is that? Who within Kronos thought that was a good idea, and who within MegaCorpCH went along with it?
Even worse, while SAP allowed us to edit incorrect or missing time-in/-out events, Kronos requires that all of these minor changes are escalated to MegaCorpCH's already competence-challenged HR department. This will result in a tidal wave of requests that will doubtlessly leave them high-and-dry. Of course, it's always the minions who have to deal with the fallout from braindead management decisions, not those who enjoyed the bloody good game of golf, dinner, and wine. But, nevertheless, HA!
I never thought that I'd say this, but come back SAP, all is forgiven!
Confirmed by a friend in the know over a beer or two last night: somebody high up the corporate finance department, who was involved in the Kronos deal, had to leave the company over irregularities
—presumably a euphemism for golf/dinner/wine—in the bidding. By then, of course, binding contracts were in place, and we're left with what can only be politely described as a sub-optimal solution.