Ryan Kanno: The diary of an Enginerd in Hawaii

I learned a thing or two about a business’ core competencies in my Business 660 Strategy course last semester. I can definitely say that Google Checkout is not one of them. Having been a Google-fan since day one, I really, really struggled to write this blog… but the truth must be told.

Google Checkout is a piece of crap.

You’d think that having a market capitalization of 145 billlllioooooooon dollars might warrant some half-decent software, but apparently, this is living proof that there is absolutely no direct correlation between the two (maybe proof of an inverse one).

Having been suckered by their ploy to gain market share (using Google Checkout meant another $10 off my purchase price), on December 7th, I decided to purchase a TMX Tickle Me Elmo doll from ToysRUs.com. Having purchased the item, I received a confirmation email in my Gmail account indicating that my purchase was “In Progress“.

A few days passed and the purchase status hadn’t changed. I called ToysRUs customer care, and they immediately recognized that Google hadn’t sent the order to them - hence, the invalid order number and static progress indicator. They indicated they would shoot an email off to Googs to see what the problem was. Satisfied with their answer, I sat and waited for an email from Google, aka recognizing how they fu$#ed up.

Three days later, and not surprisingly, nothing.

I decided to call ToysRUs once again, and their system indicated that an email had been sent to Google requesting the status of my order. I find it completely ironic that the ToysRUs back office software was more accurate than Google’s! Unable to even remotely contact a real person at Google (I know, I know, enginerds have no personality), I asked ToysRUs if they would still honor the Tickle Me Elmo price. Unfortunately, at this point, the toy was sold out.

So here I am, waiting for my order status to get out of “In Progress” without any hope of fulfilling my order, and worst of all, nobody at Google can tell me what happened. Actually, they probably could, but they just don’t have a customer presence to tell me what the f happened. I’m not sure who thought it would be a brilliant move to unleash untested software for the holiday season, but I can tell you I’m sticking to Paypal.

I honestly thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a server glitch and I was one of the unlucky few affected. But performing a simple search (using Google), you can find similar experiences like here, here, here, here, and here - for starters. I could probably spend all night aggregating these links.

Not to mention, as the last article points out, they now have my damn credit card, and I have nothing to show for it. I’m not sure if it’s because they have their hands in too many pots, but it might be that time to analyze and see what pots are actually worth stirring.

Having been enrolled in the University of Hawaii MBA program the last 3 years, I can honestly say that I haven’t been very impressed. No offense, but aside from the occassional diamonds in the rough like Professor Suyderhoud, Professor Ito, and Professor Robinson, the assigned work has often been nondescript and tedious. Without challenging the students, I often wonder how this program is purportedly preparing me for the ‘real world.’

Coming from a <insert shameless plug>top 5 enginerding graduate program</insert shameless plug>, I had high expectations. Three years, a lot of ‘busy work’ later, and probably ~$15,000 poorer - I’m amazed at what little I have to show. Compounding the matter is the fact that the administration is favoring the day program over the evening one, and thus, good electives are very difficult to come by.

So with that said…

Since I hold a Masters degree from another accredited university, I was curious to find out if I could transfer credits I used from a previous degree to eliminate a few electives I needed to fulfill my MBA degree. After all, the MBA requirements allow me to take 9 credits from another college - meaning that I could potentially take the exact same courses I took from my previous Masters, the only difference being is that the course at Manoa is taught by a different professor.

After scheduling an appointment and speaking to the appropriate people, I’ve come to the following disheartening conclusions. First, apparently I’m not allowed to transfer these credits because this dilutes the education I’ll receive at Manoa (Someone actually told this to me). I’m no Grigori Perelman, but this isn’t exactly the Poincaré conjecture either. I’m not exactly sure how a top 5 engineering program dilutes a middle-tier-at-best business program, especially when I’m able to take the same coursework. The argument is inane and makes absolutely no sense - not to mention is quite insulting. Second, the University apparently only wants my money, which is totally fine because based on the quality of education I’ve received up to this point - this has already been quite apparent (to me, at least). Finally, I’m truly disappointed at how people who have the power to elicit and enact change - just can’t see the forest from the trees.

Now, I’ve talked to a lot of people about this issue, and I’m not sure if people like me or whatnot, but I haven’t found a single person who hasn’t agreed with me. All the engineers at work just think that’s typical of the UH system.

I have a solution.

Either let me transfer the credits or modify the MBA requirements for people with advanced degrees, ie. audit the courses we can take to prevent us from taking courses from our past degree. The solution is so simple, yet I guess it’s too complex since it has escaped administration for all these years.

Here’s a tip UH - it doesn’t matter if you get $25 million or a thousand billion, without hiring people who can function without blinders, but more importantly, without educating and challenging your students, you’ll still be that middle-tier-at-best graduate business program that you’ve always been.