Fill in the *&@!!# blank

Why-oh-why do companies send out 'vendor application' forms in such pathetic formats? Today we've had one in PDF that must be printed out, hand filled (or ick, typed) and another one in Word. The Word form was laid out poorly so whenever you typed something in a blank, the rest of the form scrolled as the blank line '_____' pushed into a second line.

Do the people sending out these forms realize how unusable they are? And how much they waste our time just figuring out how to fill them out. Of course, what they are getting back isn't any more usable for them. Why can't this be an online form? Or a PDF form? Or a Word file configured to by filled out? I don't even mind having to fax it, if its easy to fill out.

Unfortunately, no one seems to care about forms. They have no one who cares about them or their use (except an ISO auditor). But they have to be a significant cost of doing business. They are just something to be printed and filed. I hope you care about the forms your company sends, or at least your department. Gosh, should a marketing or sales department send any forms to be filled out to anyone, anyway?