The Database Dilemma

There are big problems in the world today - heck, gigantic problems almost beyond our ability to comprehend. Hunger, war, disease, ignorance...these hover over us and around us, and if we allowed it, these could consume our every waking thought. So we stop thinking about them.

We bring our worry closer to home. The worry-beads for medium-size problems go through our mental fingers: paying the mortgage, the leak over the garage, the kids' braces, the spouse's linger glance at the tennis pro....these, too, can overwhelm if we become too focused. So we stop thinking about them.

And then we're left with small problems. Issue that won't save the planet, won't change our lives, but at least we feel like we can get a handle on them, maybe solve them. Or can we?

Here's one that's infinitesimal in the scheme of things - but it's haunted me for decades. How do you get people to type consistently in databases. I hear you guffaw. "Who cares?" you scoff. And yet, as soon as you have "Jones Co" and Jones Co." and "Jones Company" in the same database, you may as well be writing on cocktail napkins for all the data manipulation you'll be able to do.

Do you go behind and try to clean it up like the poor schmuck who follows the elephant in the parade? Seems unending and thankless.

Do you try to put controls in place? Sounds good, but if Facebook and Twitter have taught us anything it's that control is illusory at best.

Do you just live with the inconsistencies and count yourself better off than if you had no database?

Or do you whip out the cocktail napkins and start writing - enjoying the cocktail as you go?