No confidence

We’re all supposed to be excited that we get all our HR benefits on-line now. That we have the convenience of doing our elections or allocating our 401k’s via a web interface. I can’t completely complain. It beats the hell out of dealing with multiple forms, finding the right person to hand them to, and waiting much longer than should be needed. But, wow. Without exception the benefits and 401k sites that I’ve experienced are the most frightening sites I’ve ever encountered. They are ages behind in design and layout with an almost indecipherable navigation system. They break. They throw errors. Heck, they even require me to type in my SSN to identify myself (isn’t that illegal now?!).

Case in point: my current employer (which otherwise rules) has a new contract broker organizing our benefits. You can’t complete your elections if you are using Mozilla, Firefox, or IE under Windows XP SP2. If you’re a geek, you probably already guessed the reason: their site uses unrequested popup windows. Yeah, popups. You know those things for which there are dozens of programs designed to stop them because the whole entire universe hates them? Apparently these people didn’t notice this trend. What kind of mickey mouse people do they have building these sites? I’m supposed to trust them? Eek.