My schedule is so, so light in June and July. Thus, my solo vacation at the end of spring and then yardwork alongside catching up other things in a house that is too big with too many pets and a mostly disgusting 20-year-old man.

I teach ONE class and it’s a very low lift.

Today, I have exchanged almost an hour’s worth of emails with a student who is applying for a national credential.

The culprit?

Flat versus completely fillable PDFs.

And this particular student is extremely detail oriented. I’m hit or miss with that feature. Sometimes I figure, “Well, this effort will have to be good enough!”

I signed and dated the form and when I sent it back because her field supervisor didn’t have a verified email address it wasn’t an electronic signature on the form. She’d typed her name. Therefore, Adobe erased her information. She had also only checked two boxes instead of the five which are required on the form from the field-based supervisor.

I can type her name with other features and can’t check the boxes because they’re now flat.

The demographic information also disappeared.

I want to hop on a Zoom with the student to determine what’s acceptable for her in her own estimation to turn into the national credentialing board.

I think that there’s this battle during this moment in time with more archaic software platforms and going fully artificially intelligence based. That means that occasionally software that had been used for years–like Adobe Reader–you have snafus that are difficult to correct.

I’m so glad that I’m not at my day job and am giving up my lunch to fight with a PDF!

And I’m secretly hoping that when I am done with the five classes that I have to take and start my own practice that a majority of my clients are the analog people who want to meet in person in the office that I can sublet!

Do you have any funny or frustrating technology stories to share?