manual work rocks

This happened yesterday, a friday. My colleague asked me to attend her migration meeting at 4 pm but I told her I wasn't free. My phone rang at 5 pm, she asked me to go her meeting because there is an issue. So I went and it was over in 10 min.

Me: what is the issue?

Vendor 1: our migration service request only covers exporting of data to DVD but not importing.

Me: why not import?

Vendor 1: because there is no way to import a data table with attachments.

Me: so how is it supposed to be done?

Vendor 1: you will need to import the spreadsheet first, then manually attach the documents back one by one. It is not in our migration scope to do it. Users are also not going to do it.

Me: and why must I be the one doing it?

Vendor 1: that's the issue now.

Me: do you have any unique identifier to link the data row and attachments?

Vendor 1: no, you need to look at the title.

Me: how is the folder structure going to be like in the DVD?

Vendor 1: just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...

Me: how do you get those numbers?

Vendor 1: we drag out one folder at a time, manually, the numbers are system generated.

Me: if the system has the number, can you export it out to the spreadsheet?

Vendor 1: yes.

Me: if you have the number, then you can create a link to folder containing these files. We just upload all these numbered folders into a folder.

Vendor 2 (vendor 1's boss): oh...

Me: do you understand?

Vendor 1: we can't link to the folder.

Me: we manually pre-fix the URL to the root attachments folder to those unique numbers.

Vendor 2 explained to vendor 1 because he couldn't understand. At this point, the users already understood.

Users: we will use this method.

Vendor 1: we will just give you the spreadsheet and DVD and there will be no links to the attachments.

Me: nevermind, I will show you how do it when the time comes.

He must be still lost, but I think his boss should be able to explain to him. I really don't how they survive as vendors to be recommending manual work. Actually I don't really have any business in this, but that's how my work is.