Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Data entry, one of the lower-paid professions, is prone to errors, and some can be fatal.

During the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Ida, a person close to me needed an essential service. By “essential” I mean if the service did not arrive, someone would die.

I repeatedly called the service provider. Finally, a person called back noting a possible error. Some digging into a database while on the phone showed that the address of the person close to me was incorrectly entered into the customer database. Instead of “West Smith Rd” or “W Smith Rd,” the entry was “West W Smith Rd.” Well, “West W Smith Rd” did not exist, hence, the account of the person close to me did not exist, hence, no services would be delivered, hence…fatality.

I was fortunate to be speaking to a competent and conscientious person who fixed the database, made several internal calls, and delivered the essential services just in time.

Such a data entry error is often called “fat fingering” the database with the thought that a finger wandered from one key to another on the keyboard and entered the wrong character. This is an honest error that occurs often. People perform data entry; people are fallible, and the mistake is understandable.

What is not understandable is that a company that delivers essential services would not have several automated and manual tests to catch and correct data entry errors. A simple automated test would compare the address entered to other databases. If the address does not exist anywhere else, have a person check the entry. The same goes for phone numbers, the spelling of names, etc. That is one simple test, there are many others available.

Fat fingering the database costs people jobs, income, health care, essential services, etc. and lives. There are techniques available to catch and correct the inevitable human error. Please, please use these techniques with your databases. Lives may be at stake.