Reasons to Self Re-Educate

I work in a department that has nothing to do with computers or software development, yet the skills I have developed in the last year are maing me very critical of how business gets done.  It is the kind of place where people with wrong skill set are asked to complete certain tasks.

For example, I work at a large aquatic center, with roughly 3000 individuals passing through the building each week.  Most are children participating in a 30 minute swimming lesson, with a fair amount taking part in more than one lesson with a different instructor.  The new project is to identify these kids so their assessment from each instructor is consistent.

The problem is, since this is a municipal operation, there other programs run by the city, such as day camps, clubs, and other organizations, all using the same database.  That by itself is not the problem.  The problem is there are only a select few who work for the city who know how manipulate a large database.  The task of identifying kids in multiple lessons fell to a clerk with only basic computer skills, and planned by a manager who has issues organizing her e-mail in any kind of logical manner.

The poor office clerk was left using Microsoft Excel to create a list of a few hundred kids, and about 50 instructors, instead of getting an employee from the IT department, with the necessary skill set, to create a report with the desired information.

Just another where one who has no clue asks another with little skill to perform a complex task.