Holy jeebus.  A not-to-be-named transport company (not Duncan) in Quebec have initiated EDI communications with a client.

Sounds good so far, couple really simple documents.  Ok, they have no document spcs as to how they need documents formatted, ok, here’s some samples!  "Eh tabarnac she’s good!  we make it production yes?!?"  Well everybody is on board, all systems good to go.

Testing proves to be tiring, communications back and forth frequently confusing, due to language probs.  They provide no document specifections, agree to our sample document formats, but somehow what we send them isn’t what they expected? WTF?  How can you expect anything without saying what you want?  Go to a restaurant, tell the waiter "surprise me" then complain that’s not what you wanted.  Bonne chance.

Well, apparently some goofboul decides to send production documents using an ID that was never setup, not the one they said they would be using, so nothing is coming in.  Shit happens, "eh tabarnac we make a bad ID!".  Ok. that’s fixed.  Documents arriving.

WTF.  They are sending in document alright, and have decided to break only a few cardinal rules to EDI.  Address segments, with no elements, how drole!

• N1*WH*Fucktard Transport*9*0212~
• N3~
• N4~

Wait a tic!  Indicate that there is both N3 + N4 address info, yet nothing there!

So many issues, with them being hardcore French, our side Engligh, many more fuckups on the way im sure. 

Then it dawned on us, this isn’t a language issue causing us problems with the setup, these people are fucking stupid in any language!