Gym thinks only men can be Drs

Yes, your answer was pragmatic, but it was also dismissive and erasing of sexism.

Those things do matter to some of us.

The fact you've seen a less sexist option and still cling to your own is inexplicable. It's completely unnecessary.

You still don't get it Kim.

I hate the number of online forms which insist on having title as a compulsory field - it is not necessary, and almost never gives the option of having no title at all (as I prefer.) If it is necessary to know someone's sex (e.g. it is relevant for a GP's patient register), they can have a separate field for that. But I really don't understand why the bank will let me have a card with no title, but they won't let me have an account without a title, even if that's my preference. It's not often relevant whether I'm male or female or however else I might identify, and it's even less relevant whether I'm married or not. It's shoddy programming, but it's so common.

Exactly. That's the main thing. She needs access to the changing room. Is there a way that can be achieved quickly and easily whilst the database error is sorted out?

That's all I've been trying to say. How can she get access to the changing room easily?

Er, like alex suggested already? Many, many, many posts ago, and without being patronizing or dismissive?

We usually have a 3 month warranty period. If you don't find the problem in that time then tough. You pay for it. (and 98% of the time it is because they didn't think of something they should have asked for)

It should be an easy fix in purely technical terms, but what will probably happen is something more like:

Someone submits a change request. It gets added to the list of requests. Someone reviews new entries to the list and assigns them priorities. A request that's about some girls (yes, I did choose that word rather than women) making a fuss about titles is likely to be seen as lower priority. It will definitely be lower priority than something which affects revenue, e.g. errors in billing modules or something.

At some point, it will get to the developers, and they will spend some time working on this, which might be just half an hour's work, but I am assuming it's not really madly programmed in the first place, and it's just a simple change. Then it goes to the testers. It may go back to the developers for changes. At some point, it will go to user testers - depending on the policies where they are, it may have to wait for a testing slot, if they're only released at certain times, or other functionality is being tested. Obviously any issues which show up in testing will need to go back for testing. Eventually it will get signed off, and it will then go into the next release. That might well happen once a month. Some places are less frequent.

Either way, it could easily take 6 months or more.

That would be a good warranty, FC.

Not the way that commercial companies work, Kim.

Sorry.

I don't think commercial software is commonly provided with any kind of warranty against the designer being a sexist fuckwit. This should all have been dealt with in the specification anyway.

Well, this thread is surreal now.

Actually I can build and code databases using SQL and Access. I did far more than just a course. So yes - it is an easy rule to fix. If it's brought in software, I would be on the phone to the company. They can dial in and update the rules in a few minutes. And it would be done for free

Buahahaha at this. I work full time as an analyst on a database application.

You have no idea how easy a rule it is to fix. This rule may be buried in code that is many thousands of lines long. Then the whole of that functionality would need regression testing to make sure that it has not broken other stuff.

Our clients do not just phone up and we fix stuff. They have to raise a change request, get an impact estimate, raise a purchase order and then we schedule the work. Not all of them we can 'dial in'. We do nothing for free.

Your post sounds like you have no idea of the practicalities of commercial software, but may have dabbled a bit elsewhere.

Your post sounds like you are extrapolating your experience of that dabbling should be applicable to commercial software companies. This is not the case.

Good for you. But you know nothing about this database so you don't know if it is an easy fix.

Lovely for you though that you feel confident enough to pronounce on this point with no information about the issue. Funny that.

A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon (doctor) says 'I can not do the surgery because this is my son'. How is this possible?

See, my reaction to this has always been, how can she do the surgery? Surely you're not allowed to operate on someone you're that closely related to?

Either pragmatic interim solution is OK, in my view. And yes, unisex changing villages FTW. My gym (well the swimming pool therein) does it, and I think it's brilliant.

widow - I don't think anyone thought alex's pragmatic solution was a problem? Even kim accepted it as a possibility, if I remember rightly.

Obviously, you are right, it's important she get to use the changing room.

I will say, though, I think this has another big solution that needs to happen - we do still need the 'ideal world' solution where men and women don't need separate changing rooms, IMO.

Hamster, there was some talk of bringing in the gender neutral title Mx.

What's wrong with using a pragmatic interim workaround until the sloppy coding has been fixed? Accepting the workaround until solution is found doesn't mean caving in. Nor does it mean that the long term correct solution won't be implemented. Just means that she can access the right changing room in the mean time.

It is a problem that requires two solutions anyway. The business needs to fix the problem so that it doesn't happen again, and the member of staff dealing with the customer needs to apologise to the customer so that she knows the organisation recognises that they have inconvenienced her.