Indeed.com, more verbose than The Bible
After updating my resume on Indeed.com, a bit of text indicated they had "41 suggestions to improve my resume." Pretty sure I'd messed something up, I clicked it, which led me to agreeing, again, to their terms of service and privacy policy. I get it, we're just supposed to click ok. I'm particular though. I clicked on the terms of service link. Wow. That has more words than any book in the Bible, for real. As of today's posting, the Indeed.com terms of service constitutes 66,580 words - 417,009 characters. The wordiest book in The Bible is Jeremiah at 33,002 words. Genesis comes in second at 32,047 words. Indeed's terms of service are over twice as long as the longest book in the bible. Forget about the front-runner, let's just talk about Genesis since most people have made it through that. I'm going to assume the reader read Genesis and ask them to think back to the monumental task that was. There's more than a truck load of information there, just like in the Indeed.com terms of service. Which, to anyone, is more important and worth weeks of study? "The lawyers made us do it!" they'd likely say. Well here's what's up, Indeed.com: You lawyered yourself to a position that can't be defended. I am not a lawyer but if I were to make a case against your company I'd simply state there is no reasonable expectation for a user to actually read all of that. Add in your privacy policy (15,914 words as of this writing), and we're looking at a tome of 82,494 words. There's absolutely no reasonable expectation a regular person is going to read all of that. This is longer than "Harry Potter and the Sourcerer's Stone" by JK Rowling (77,325 words). Longer than Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (74,800 words). Longer than The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger (73,404 words).
Your "required agreement" is longer than the following classic novels:
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, 69,066 words
- The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 67,707 words
- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 67,280 words
- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 66,950 words
- The Color Purple, Alice Walker, 66,556 words
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 63,766 words
Does Indeed.com really think they have covered every base? I'm just saying I think it would be an easy case to argue that no user could be held to those terms of service and privacy policy due to the egregious verbosity. I think it would be a slam dunk. I think Indeed.com out-lawyered itself. Don't even get me started on Samsung.
I won't be checking in on those 41 suggestions. I'm not agreeing to anything. Check the bottom of our page for our privacy policy. Please advise if it doesn't seem clear and concise.
YeahBut, a story about UPS, the shipping industry, and modern business
Definitions:
KPI: a type of performance measurement. KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity (such as projects, programs, products and other initiatives) in which it engages. KPIs provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most -- Source - Wikipedia
Metrics: An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement -- Source - Wikipedia
C suite: Senior Management, like CEO, CFO, and people whose title starts with C. -- Read more at Wikipedia
In my estimation of the situation, we are in a golden age of shipping. More people are getting shipments and more shipments per person are being made than any other time in human history. Truly the shipping companies must be raking in money by the bucket load. Today alone I had 3 separate shipments scheduled to arrive at my door from the big carriers. I had another delivery but it was outside the big carriers and we won't count that. I'm not unusual, I know other people have the same situation from time to time. We don't intend for things to come in like that but we have no control over when a retailer ships something and sometimes they all come at once, on a Friday. It is truly a bull market for the shippers because they are getting paid, even if it is called "Free Shipping." Somebody always pays. I integrated the UPS API into a website and I studied the documentation to do the same with FedEx. I'm well aware of the charges. Too aware, due to a bug in my code. Lesson learned and damage managed.
Today I had 2 separate deliveries with USPS. For some reason they delivered one to my door and the other to my mailbox. I suspect it was because the one that came to my door was too big for the mailbox and the other wasn't. Whatever the logistics of that was, it doesn't matter. Both were delivered and the tracking on both showed exactly where they were and they were definitely there. Good on them. UPS, on the other hand, gave me a 4 hour window, 1pm to 5pm. I was very much looking forward to that delivery to continue my day so I did a bunch of stress cleaning, kept watch out the front window, and waited. Around 6:15 PM the status changed to "Arriving by 7 PM." I was dubious. At 8:09 PM the delivery status changed to "Reschedule Delivery Requested," which Amazon states as "The delivery of your package has been rescheduled based on your shipment instructions for the carrier." I know I won't see that until at least Monday because there's no way Amazon ticked the box for Saturday or Sunday delivery.
I didn't request a reschedule and I know Amazon doesn't care enough to do that. My opinion is this was set to this status because it meets a KPI they need to keep up.
In the mart of competitive commerce today things are measured with what they like to call "KPI's," definition above. These are things like, in the shipping industry, "Did we keep the promised delivery time, yes or no", "Did the driver take every right turn and no left turns, yes or no", and things like that. In software development, my field, I see Metrics and KPI's like, "Did we deliver the code by the promised date and time, yes or no", and "Was the code delivery bug free and free of defects, yes or no." In construction these would be, "Did we complete this task by the scheduled date, yes or no,", and "Was the performed work free of defects and true to the engineered solution?" The KPI means Key Perfomance Indicators and it's the questions one would want to know about the business. This is how you break down the performance of a company in a snapshot kind of way so it can be put into a spreadsheet and delivered to managers and middle managers so they don't have to actually know the details. No offense intended there, they have stuff to do and this is an excellent way to measure performance of the company or a branch, or even a single person. The score card is made up of the Metrics, the Yesses and Noes. At least that's the general overview. They have entire courses on such things, and careers dedicated to tracking and creating those things. It is a useful tool when utilized honestly.
Here's where the "YeahButs" comes in. This is where dishonesty enters the equation. In my world, software development, the "YeahButs" are "The code was not bug free but that was an existing bug the client hadn't spotted" or any number of other things. It's a way to ... well, YeahBut. That issue is brought up to the client, sometimes a rollback of code is required, and the bug is fixed and the Metric goes to a + instead of a -. It appears in the shipping world, they just change the status to some mystery "Reschedule Delivery Requested" which is like a quantum bit - it can be both yes and no. It's a wash and they don't take the hit on their KPI because the metric is outside the boundaries of "yes or no." It, and they definitely have similar statuses, such as "Weather delay," are "YeahButs" I'm not saying weather delays aren't real, they absolutely are. But check your memory banks. Have you ever been tracking a package while a "Storm was brewing" but at your place and area it is fine... and the package is already in your home town. But you don't get your package due to the non-locally-existing weather delay? I sure have, multiple times. Who knows why they don't actually deliver the package. But they have an easy out, the "YeahBut," and they use it. They, the people delivering, logistifying, and keeping track of the scorecard, suffer no damange because "it's valid" in the eyes of the spreadsheet of metrics. In reality, "YeahNo."
I see you, UPS. I'm calling you out. I just ordered something. I spoke to a customer service representative and I insisted it come FedEx or no sale. They were happy to oblige. They don't have a horse in that race other than to get my money and deliver a product by any means necessary. Remember when DHL was a major carrier? They had a lot of YeahBut's. The C suite at UPS needs to take a hard look at the honesty of the metrics, or others will start preferring other carriers. I mean if USPS is doing better than you, and they are in my experience, what does that say about the once great - almost impeccable UPS? Nothing is too big to fail. Watch Cloudstrike. Check Boeing. This is literally your golden age. Get back on top while the climb isn't too far to make. To do that you will require honesty within your reporting group and that means they need held accountable. What are the metrics on the reporters, what are their KPI's? I can only assume it is "Did employee process more than X requests per day, yes or no?" That's not good enough. Is there a review of the actuality of these situations? Not likely. The short question for the board meeting: Are our KPI's complete and meaningful, and what loopholes exist to circumvent the system? It's your business, do what you wish. I'll prefer FedEx until I see some kind of shake up in your organization.
Also your AI help agent is not ready for live usage and is more annoyance than help. Who rescheduled my delivery request? "Oh, I see you want to change your address, I can help with that!" No, I don't want to change my address. "Oh, I see you want to change your address, I can help with that!" The training is the hard part. I'd recommend putting in all of your statuses and if a user pastes one in with no misspellings it might start with an explanation of that status, regardless of the AI's desire to say "Oh, I see you want to change your address, I can help with that!"
I subscribe to the idea that the modern monopoly is defined as "Not having to support their product." Check Microsoft on that one. Android is already at almost 2x the market share - MS couldn't compete in the mobile market and users are flocking to anyting but. Even linux, dense as it is to most users, gains market share on their desktop produdct. Scope out the sinking ship known as Oracle, aka the IBM of today's world (too big to fail and they believe that... but users, developers, and market share don't agree. They don't support their products and I feel you are in the same downward spiral. The clearly useless AI is a shinging exmample of this issue. As a consumer of your products and a supporter for years I want to see you do better than that. Get back on top by investigating your own processes. Don't just point fingers at people - Start looking at yourselves. I recognize KPI's and metrics are critical to today's businesses, especially those as large as yours. But are your KPI's measuring what you need, and are the reporters using "YeahButs?" They are. You're relying on your stock price / global market share as value. Don't be that company. Prove your value by delivering your product. You are in the business of shipping and tracking. Logistics are behind the scenes and required in any shipping company. It is assumed you have that under control. Don't be "the wizard of oz." Be the greatness that you used to be. Not just great - the greatest. This is the golden age of shipping. Be gold. This is a POST Covid world. Quit "crutching" on the supply chain issues and get your organization fixed. Shipping and tracking is what you do. Do it for a change. When the modern generation gets a synopsis of this they'll get on board faster than you can react and you'll be the next DHL. And having been the hiring manager, your name will be a red flag. Working companies don't want people from a culture that equates to "I can lie on my KPI's". It isn't said out loud but it is real. Oof, and have you looked at that share price YTD? Oh I bet you have, and I bet you wonder why. Honesty in the KPI's brothers and sisters. What is real? This. Get back on top, this is your golden age. How? Look inside. Re-build that brand. I've already reached out to support, after multiple failures by your website which I can only assume were by design: Your whole process screams that. If you care about the receiver of your product, shipping and tracking, it doesn't show. I'll get, from your company, what you provide. That is what your process shows. You are not GameStop, they won't rally behind you and make you what you aren't. Long-term investors are already jumping ship - check that YTD stock price. It isn't because of Covid or supply chain issues. It's your business, whether you acknowledge it or not.