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We call it Orgasmicle™   Let's just say that I'm a president of a big company and let's say that I can make a choice between the following database systems for our company to use: Microsoft Notepad™ A Rusty Fork™ Dried Llama Dung and Broken Pencils™ Oracle™   Yes, I know what you are thinking: "That Notepad™ thing looks mighty enticing. Then again, I've heard quite a bit about A Rusty Fork™, that could do the trick, too! And, hey, who HASN'T heard about Dried Llama Dung and Broken Pencils™?"   Sure, any saavy CEO would be salivating over the opportunity to jump right in and start tearing into those orders and trying to figure out the ledger format while getting elbow deep into the llama crap with a broken pencil in each hand. Hey, who wouldn't?   But let's say that your company is having a bad year and laying off people by the thousands. Let's also say that stock prices are dropping and your customers are increasingly dissatisfied with your service levels. Let's also say that you just can't wait to pick the worst possible software on the planet to use for organizing stock, taking orders, and maintaining inventory. Then of course you make a beeline for the Oracle™ software.   Imagine a software that cannot separate service and product line items, forcing employees to jam service charges into hardware charges while praying that the customers don't look too closely at their invoices.   Picture being unable to locate accounts by the recipients' addresses and then combing through major companies with fifteen separate accounts, each account having up to a hundred possible shipping and billing addresses, and having to look at each address individually before being able to place an order.   Try to comprehend a software that DOESN'T ALLOW CUSTOM INFORMATION ON EACH SHIPPING LABEL, a software that requires a NEW LINE added to the ACCOUNT in order to create a simple ATTENTION LINE on the friggin' SHIPPING LABEL!!! The addition of lines to an account can take up to TWENTY FOUR HOURS!!!   If you want to send a package to someone with an attention line of "Attention: Purchase Order 144245," you essentially have to build a NEW ACCOUNT for THAT PURCHASE ORDER!!! I work with companies that produce TENS OF THOUSANDS of PURCHASE ORDER NUMBERS EVERY YEAR!!! Wait, it gets better! None of these purchase order lines will EVER BE DELETED FROM THE ACCOUNT!!!! Sorting through an account may require looking through THOUSANDS OF LINES OF INFORMATION EVERY TIME AN ORDER IS PLACED!!!! YAY!!!!!   This whole process is like buying a box of checks made out ONLY TO THE PIZZA GUY! If you want to write a check to someone else, you have to buy a NEW BOX OF CHECKS for EVERYBODY YOU WRITE CHECKS TO and you have to do so WELL IN ADVANCE of your NEED FOR THEM!!!   If Orgasmicle™ ran my bank and I got into an accident, I would have had to request the checks with the emergency room's doctor's name on them up to twenty four hours BEFORE I HAD THE ACCIDENT!!!   Is it any wonder that it took me seventy-five minutes to complete an order that cost the customer a whopping $3.17?!?! THREE FRIGGIN' DOLLARS!!! They LOST almost TWENTY DOLLARS on that ONE TRANSACTION in MY TIME ALONE!!! Imagine what it cost for the WAREHOUSE crew and the BILLING PEOPLE and the stinkin' SHIPPING?!?!?!   Oh, yeah, and the stories at about my company REFUSING any packages that do not have an attention line are LEGENDARY! We could not accept packages that WE SHIP TO OURSELVES!!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!   Yeah, this thing is never going to see the light of day...   Copyright 2002 by Frank Emsley