A- Maz(e)- In(g) Uploading

A- Maz(e) - In(g) Uploading - Just as I was sitting at my desk and trying to get a grip on all that paperwork that needed to be submitted electronically in order to renew my application status as a teacher in my home country, I figured I had just gained a valuable opportunity to blog about this kind of virtual complications. As much as I generally oppose to a uniform evaluation system in schools per SE, I've got to admit that I'm definitely welcoming the revolutionary step of funneling teachers' applications into an ultimately standardized model of registration and renewal. However, and this should actually be put into red blinking capital letters, unless you are a computer geek or at least savvy enough- none of which I could claim fame to - a perhaps simplification intended process of a 10- minute job or rather 20 clicks on the PC or laptop turned out to be an ordeal of truly nightmarish quality! Is it me or is all this virtual crap getting more and more difficult to deal with? No doubt, compared to later generations I still can't hold a candle to the mental flexibility of todays' kids as far as processing computer driven steps. I feel a little like grandma who would love to strum the guitar but clearly lacks dexterity over all. Well, after all, me old fart was 26 already when I sat down at a PC for the first time ever. Tongue in cheek, I can literally hear the young world exclaim: "OMG, no wonder she's a goose egg!" Never mind, regardless of my late computer start in life, I've taught myself most of what I know today on three different operating systems. But, again I feel like screaming out, I simply have got no patience whatsoever for weird interim steps. Why can't the gods and super gurus among the programmers develop easy- to- follow software? Why does it all have to be so incredibly entangled and complex? - Back to that marvelous registration and renewal program for Austrian teachers. If one of the main functions clearly indicates UPLOAD (for documents), why the hell does it NOT do the job as described? First of all, I had to juggle around with that one stupid file which -after having scanned in its 17 certificates and documents- in a rather self- explanatory fashion took on JPG format. Now take a guess. Right, this format is not permitted at all. Okay, so it took me a while which was not much longer than it would have taken THE guy himself until I converted JPG into PDF. Since the upload amount of data is strictly limited to a mere 10 MBs, I saw the necessity of shrinking or rather compressing my freaking 16, 8 MBs. No big deal, granny even knew how to do that instantaneously without touting into my horn. Okay, so much for trying to show at least some patience! "This file format is not supported" I read, and now I simply lost it! WTF?!
Are you kidding me? I really don't have the whole day to hopefully be given the right time of day after all! Holy Crap! Alright, after a five- minute break which I badly needed to calm down, I then created two different folders and therefore divided the roughly 17 MBs into 8 and 9 MBs. Now get that: Even though it unmistakably said PROCESSING while spinning, in the end only one document popped up which - to make the whole matter recklessly more time- consuming- has to be entered separately by hand anyway. Does this mean that the 10 MB allowance refers to one document at a time, and does this BS imply that I have to upload 17 documents one by one plus catalog all on top? What am I, a secretary doing the job others are paid for? Judging from that unnecessary obstacle course, I shall not be too surprised if Austria remains in dire need of teachers other than computer experts, of course.