𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐬: 𝐀 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
In my line of work, I rarely need to log into a client’s software. If I need a report, the client usually sends it to me, or I have already automated the process to receive it without lifting a finger.
A couple of weeks ago, however, a client asked me, for personal reasons, to extract data myself from a PMS. I will not name the system, out of respect for the people behind it (one of the founders is a friend) and also because they had already admitted the hotel was still on an old legacy version awaiting migration to the cloud.
So I did something I had not done since 2005: I downloaded AnyDesk Software (sic!). For someone like me, who never installs anything, this was already a blood-red flag. But it did not stop there. I had to connect directly to the hotel owner’s computer. This meant that, while I wasted hours trying to pull data (spoiler: I did not succeed), I was also watching her digital life unfold on the same screen: incoming emails, WhatsApp notifications, and fragments of personal conversations that had nothing to do with me. She is a friend, but c’mon…
The moment I logged into the PMS itself, it was like falling through a wormhole back into the ’90s.
Now, if you know me, you also know I am impatient. ADHD-impatient. My golden rule is that if it takes 10′ to do something, we should find a way to do it in 5, and then in 1. And if Jobs taught me one thing, it is that…
𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡*𝐭.
So, I asked the software staff (the first time, politely) to handle the extraction for me. That is when the bureaucratic spiral began: tickets, emails, permissions, delays upon delays. Fourteen days later, with the deadline already behind me, and only after speaking directly with the founders, I was told that maybe, finally, the file would land in my inbox today (not there yet, BTW).
And it made me think: this is not just about tech silos, nor only about data silos.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐬.
I do not even want to begin the conversation about why, in 2025, a hotel is still forced to run on a legacy PMS. That is madness in itself. But here is the real point: when the system is weak, the human response should be stronger.
This rant would never have started if, the very first time I asked for help, someone had simply said,
“𝘠𝘦𝘴, 𝘐 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵, 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶.”
Especially because, and I do not mean this in an egoic way, I am known enough in this market to have a voice. Before this, I was neutral about this software. Today, I would never recommend it to anyone. And not because of the technology, which can be fixed, but because the people behind it failed to compensate for its flaws.
And that’s way harder to fix…
(PS: screenshot is from a very old version of Opera, but not very different from what I’ve found…)
