Four ways of doing things

This morning my wife and I went to a compounding pharmacy a few miles away after the pharmacy phone registered a busy signal on five calls. We had used the pharmacy before for Charlie’s cortisone medicine. Charlie is a standard poodle and has Addison’s disease.

For about 15 minutes, the pharmacist could not find the prescription. He used both my wife’s first name and mine for searches, used both our initials and eventually called up all last names beginning with M. He said the pharmacy used three different systems, and did not have a one-method-entry in place.

My wife said she encountered the same problem when she went to work for the alumni department at Texas A&M University - Commerce. Entry codes included Texas A&M University - Commerce; Texas A&M University Commerce; Texas A&M University, Commerce; TAM-Commerce; and TA&M-Commerce. The university IT people had not designated a specific entry code. My wife fixed that problem by making all entries in the alumni office as Texas A&M University – Commerce. It was a simple fix and made her job much easier.