[turtle777]

The company I work for was acquired by another company. Of course, things change. For the worse.
Now they have migrated us from Outlook to Lotus Notes.

Oh WTF, this makes baby Jesus cry.

Not that Outlook is such a great email client and collaboration suite, but Lotus Notes ? What a piece of utter f****ing crap.

Ah, I'm so mad.

Time to look for a new job. This is ridiculous.

[/rant]

-t

[design219]

Dude, your entire job must focus around e-mail.

Yeah, I'd say time for a change.

[ctt1wbw]

People use Lotus anything these days?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by design219 

Dude, your entire job must focus around e-mail.

Yeah, I'd say time for a change.

Pretty much so. With about 100 new emails each day, I need a well working tool.

Outlook was far from perfect, but in combination with Lookout and ClearContext, it was halfway useful.

Now, I'm definitely farked.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

People use Lotus anything these days?

Yeah, that's what I thought. The company is just too skimpy to pay the Outlook license fees. Of course, Lotus is cheaper. You get what you pay for.

-t

[MacosNerd]

Wow, quitting a job just because of the email client - seems kind of extreme. I wonder if they replace the browser what you'll do then

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Wow, quitting a job just because of the email client - seems kind of extreme. I wonder if they replace the browser what you'll do then

Nah, it's not only email. This is just symptomatic of a pathetic organization. Stuff has become really bad in the past months. I hoped it would get better, but hope is all there was...

-t

[Eug]

IBM uses Lotus notes internally. People I know there actually like it. Or at least, they don't hate Lotus Notes, and they don't particularly like Outlook.

But that's probably because they're used to it.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eug 

IBM uses Lotus notes internally. People I know there actually like it. Or at least, they don't hate Lotus Notes, and they don't particularly like Outlook.

But that's probably because they're used to it.

Example: Calendar entry - you want to clarify something.
You click on "Reply with memo" (Lotus lingo for email).
A new email opens, where you can type a comment.

Now I decided I wanted to add a recipient to that memo. You CAN'T.
Ok, fine, I thought, just close it and start a new memo.

Ha, YOU CAN'T. The only options to continue with this memo from calendar entry is

a) Send w/o comment
b) Send with comment

YOU effing can't just NOT send it.

If I run into this kind of crap after 30 mins of using Notes, I'm sure more crap is underneath the hood. It's an absolute nightmare.

-t

[MacosNerd]

My mother works for IDG and they use Lotus Notes. I was surprised when she started there about 8 years ago to see that they were using notes, and now its just as surprising to continue to see it.

Working in IT, I can definitely see why they don't move off of it. Sometimes its more cost effective to stick with a product that still works albeit not as efficiently as other, then to switch to another platform.

[Chuckit]

I kind of doubt IT has actually quantified how much it costs the workers to stick with Lotus for several more decades. They're probably just like, "Hey, easier for us!" That's judging by the places I know that use Lotus Notes.

[turtle777]

Response time creating new folder: 30 sec.
No button make emails unread - you have to go through nested menu entries.
You can't display unread emails in bold and black, it's always regular and RED !

WTF ?

-t

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I kind of doubt IT has actually quantified how much it costs to stick with Lotus for several more decades. They're probably just like, "Hey, easier for us!" That's judging by the places I know that use Lotus Notes.

Actually the IT departments I have worked in, regularly do such quantification on costs. It would be very short sighted of them not too, or have an attitude of "Hey, easier for us!" I've been involved in a number of such plans and in some cases the move was made to switch to a new product and some cases the decision to stick with the existing solution was made.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Actually the IT departments I have worked in, regularly do such quantification on costs. It would be very short sighted of them not too, or have an attitude of "Hey, easier for us!" I've been involved in a number of such plans and in some cases the move was made to switch to a new product and some cases the decision to stick with the existing solution was made.

In my companies case, they DID a financial assessment.

They decided for Lotus Notes because it would save them a couple of million per year.
For a company with almost $ 40B in Sales, that's a joke.

But apparently, worth putting up with reduced productivity.

-t

[Gankdawg]

I had to use it at a company I worked for.......I hated it. And the people who said "Send me a Note" drove me crazy.

[analogika]

My last job had calendaring and email based around lotus Notes.

What. A. ****ing. Nightmare.

To the naysayers: If you're stuck with Lotus Notes for interoffice communication and planning, then yes, your job actually BECOMES centered around e-mail to a certain extent - no joke.

You waste so much frigging time on crap that has been efficiently and gracefully solved for a DECADE now, with (as mentioned) nested menus, awkward shifting buttons and obtuse application structuring not exactly aiding workflow.

[Paco500]

There are still some companies, including quite a few govt agencies, that stick with notes for security reasons. It's got exchange beat hands down in that regard. A lot of the enhanced security features actually make it more difficult and expensive to support.

[turtle777]

Just for those who never used Notes:

Think of how much better OS X 10.5 is over Windows 95
Thats about how much better Outlook is over Lotus Notes.

LN is absolutely archaic. The UI and UI guidelines must have been put together by a blind, retarded monkey. It goes against all common sense and standard conventions in interface design and usability.
At least, in Outlook there are always multiple ways of getting to do things, like right-click (context menu), menus commands, toolbar and keyboard shortcuts.

In LN, there is only ONE, maybe two ways to do it. If you can't find it, you're toast. It might be hidden in some obscure menu path that you'll never find.

I'm ready to shot myself. It's THAT bad.

-t

[analogika]

^ That is NOT an exaggeration (except for the shooting bit - that passes). Seriously.

I had to use it for a couple of years.

[Laminar]

I use LN at my job. Yes, it blows. It often won't tell me if I've received a new email and I have to manually refresh my inbox to see them. The calendar sharing functions suck. While you can "preview" new emails (view them in a section of the window under your inbox, just like Mail.app), the message isn't "read" until you open it in a separate window. The address lookup sucks, too. It's...well...awful. I remember the IT department saying something about how they were proud to be Microsoft-free. Well, except for every computer in the office running Windows XP or 2000 and Office 97.

[turtle777]

I'm so bumped, if I didn't have an interview tomorrow, I'd get seriously drunk tonight

The potential new job just become even more attractive - they're using Outlook.
I never thought I'd favor a job based on the email client they're using. Well, I learned my lesson.

-t