We have a client that uses codes to organize their user hierarchy.  They are consistenly re-using the same codes for different groups of people, concurrently.  This, of course, wreaks havoc witht the user access layer as it tries to determine who-is-who.  The lead developer has explained the problem and possible solutions at least a dozen times to the customer reps over the last year or so.   And it happened again today with the follow on question from the lead developer about when this might be fixed and the automatic response from the customer rep as to why this is a problem.

It would be nice to be able to generate an automatic response (both from the customer rep and the lead developer) in this situation.  The neatest piece would be having a meeting auto setup between the lead developer, customer rep and the CTO so the thing could finally get resolved.  The bad thing is the customer, who has been in business for over a hundred years, is extremely unlikely to change their ways regardless of what we do.

The whole thing reminds me of the story of a comedian convention where commedians would catch each other in the hall, say something like “Joke 43″ and both would start laughing.  At least they both found it funny.