"tools"

You know how new computer applications are sometimes called tools? hmmm.

Remember when cavemen invented tools? No? Neither do I. But it probably went exactly like this:

The caveman grunts at the carcass which he can't skin. He wants to make a pelt! Its going to get cold soon! He beats the carcass with his fists, he pulls on the carcass. He tears at the carcass with his teeth and it budges. His teeth can't cut through the skin, but they can make a dent! He tries to sharpen his tooth. OUCH! He finds a piece of wood and tries to sharpen that. He can now poke a hole in the hide! This is a start! Now we're talkin'!

That was the guy who INVENTED the tool. The other cavemen, the ones who came after him, were supposed to just be thankful that they had the tool, and feel that the tool MADE THEIR JOB EASIER.

So how do we explain this:

The Sooz grunts at the pile of receipts. She opens the new application and the online training session in unison. She starts pausing the training session b/c it moves too fast. She finds that she has to print out a barcode from the expense report, fax it to an imaging center with the receipts, and notify the app that the receipts have been sent, noting the barcode. After that she has to wait a day and log back on so she can view her receipts and attach them. then she gets an alert. There are unattached amex expenses somewhere. She doesn't have access to the amex tool, so after 15 emails to the security team, she gets access. but even though amex, and the company, have records of the amex expenses, she still needs to get the hardcopy receipts from her boss. He doesn't have them. time ticks. The tool times out and erases all the work. Thats ok because there were several fields she hadn't filled out yet, like this one: "Select Types of Expense: ENT: non-Americas or SEC: client meal."

NOT A TOOL.