Please Stop It

prof serious is mildly irritated

You may wish to send this to somebody in your organisation:

Dear Colleague,

Please stop it. Under no circumstances send out that Microsoft Word form!

First and foremost, why do you need this information from me in the first place? Is it because you do not how to use the many data resources potentially at your disposal? Or is it possibly some sort of ill-conceived trawl for information that allows you to put numbers into a presentation as a plausible substitute for thinking about the issue at hand? l have, after all, provided it before, but you probably cannot retrieve it from the, now inaccessible, version of the Word form you made me fill in last time.

Perhaps you know that I require something from you and intend to make me suffer for it by filling out the form? Strike that last question it probably just reflects my frustration.

If there are some specific items of information you need, or a particular format in which you want them presented, just say. An example I could mimic would get you much better quality information than your ‘template’. But, perhaps you do not know what you want ... in which case, why are you creating a form and placing the burden on me?

In any event, I know that you do not intend to make systematic use of the information. Otherwise, you would not have created it in Microsoft Word. Let me be clear: insecure, lacking version control, packed full of hidden metadata, macros and scripts. They are almost as difficult to extract data from as they are to put the data into. Word forms are where data goes to die. Yes, it is conceivable that you are systematically extracting this information using AI. But, somehow I doubt it.

I know that my filling in the form is largely wasted effort because this form has revealed the limits of your digital skills. It is only one step up from using spaces to align text, using multiple CRs to arrange material on the page, numbering lists manually, and letting images float about unpredictably. Actually, to be fair, it is two steps up.

All this before I start filling in your form. Why did you decide on boxes of that particular size split across page boundaries, and why a completely different font? Why have you created check boxes that you cannot actually check without editing the form itself? Why have you got a signature box that I cannot actually put an image into? And why do you need a signature at all ... I work for the same organisation as you? Why have you created a layout where the margins are so narrow that it cannot be printed? Why am I unable to fill this in on my mobile device? Just ... why?

Let me assist. You have lots of choices - Microsoft Forms, Qualtrics, Microsoft Power Apps, SurveyMonkey ... even fillable PDFs ... the list goes on. You could take a course - in fact, save your time emailing the form to me - email training instead.

Yours respectfully,

[Name here]