I hate Lotes Notes

I hate Lotus Notes.

I will admit that it isn't the fault of the developers, not totally, anyway. After all, they'll be the first to admit that it was not designed as an email client first, which is how most people (especially those like me who hate it) interact with it.

Searching for sympathy, I found the website Lotus Notes Sucks (site was taken down; here's an old copy of it). It's a shame that the creator of the site appears to no longer be updating it. What is available on the site, however, is still sufficient to justify the simmering hate that users feel when they are unwittingly subject to the madness that is Lotus Notes.

There are other sites (many other sites) that also share insights into just what makes the Notes user experience so truly awful. This one, written in 2001, may seem a bit dated, but trust me, the issues mentioned pretty much remain to-date, which is all the more shameful. Look for the well-documented technically sound comments by the user named sockpuppet.

Anyway, why this post now? Well, I would have sent my contributions to the Lotus Notes Sucks site, but again, it's not being updated. Yet, there's so much more to vent about. So, I'll make my posts here, which is more for fun (and some therapy), and a bit of a break from the more serious entries.

Here's one that happened just today.

I was sending an email (by the way, why does Notes call an email a "note" in most places, but then from the directory there's a link to create a "memo"? That bugs me...but I digress...) to 5 recipients, so I typed their names into the to: field. One of the addressees was, let's say, "Keyser Soze." The other four names automatically found their respective email addresses, but Lotus Notes found two employees in the company directory named Keyser Soze. 

Here's where Lotus Notes does what Lotus Notes does best - bug me.

First of all, I can't see the actual email addresses for either of the two Soze entries. This itself is so annoying it's not funny.

I determined by the office location which of the two Sozes I wanted, and double-clicked on it. Lotus Notes won't intuitively put the name in the to address line which is where I was when the company directory opened. This too is a royal pain. Lotus Notes opens a new email with the address from the name upon which I double-clicked.

So, I copied that name into the original email to: line and Lotus Notes attempted to find the email address that is connected to that name. Guess what happened? It brought up the directory for me to choose which was the right one.

This is where I want to swear out loud. There are two employees with the same name. Somehow our IT department has differentiated the two employees, but I can't see how. I determined by the office location which one I wanted and copied the name into the email to: line. Why in the world does Lotus Notes still not know which one I want? Why take me back to the directory? To do the same thing again?

Now, there is probably a way to correctly identify the employee I want. But, in the name of the almighty Zeus, why must I get an IT person to do it for me? Why can't it be as simple as...every other email client on earth?

Hmmm, come to think of it, I do know the reason why. 

Lotus Notes sucks.