We live in an age of incredible modern technology. Communications are instantaneous. The internet is everywhere. Our world is wireless. Any device, any content, any time, any place. Right?
I like to consider myself ahead of the times, as well. I don’t mind spending money on technology that I feel can radically enhance my life. I felt that way about the internet in 1995, about digital cell phones in 2000, and about the Mac in 2005.
Well, yesterday I took a major step backward in time when I had the privilege of purchasing my…
very
first
FAX MACHINE!
Yes, friends. In spite of the vast internet touching every aspect of our lives, making high definition communication an every day occurrence, there are still people (mostly government agencies) out there who only communicate via FAX! After all the technical achievement we’ve made, they still insist that 33.6 kilobits per second is plenty fast for anyone to transmit a document, using a dedicated copper wire that can only do one at a time… I scoff!
How has this technological marvel of the 70’s lasted almost 40 years? And we still use it?
…All this, just to get a measly signature on a document… blah! Wake up, world!!! Basically, I now have another useless appliance, which I will only use once a year, drawing power in my house. An appliance which could be replaced by technology which we all already all have but totally refuse to use.
Yet another reason why America is #1.
(The good news is, the fax machine cost me $29.99 with an additional $10 mail-in rebate! So if I can just resist the laziness to send in the rebate (why would I do it anyway… I have to wait 90 days and go through miles of red tape just to get $10 back?!?) this thing might only end up costing me $19.99. (And yes, it included the ink cartridges!))
Did you know it costs like $3 to send a fax from Staples? If you only send faxes once a year, this might be a more cost effective (and space-saving) alernative.
Well, yes. I knew that. But it totally negates my two primordial American desires: 1) to have a new gadget and 2) to be lazy and not have to shower and leave the house to send a fax.
There is a service called myfax.com that allows you to send faxes via email. The first so many pages are free and then after that it cost a small amount. Justin uses it sometime for business, we have never gone over the free faxes.
But that doesn’t help you now that you have a fax machine, and you’re right why do people still use the darn things anyway?
I had this same revelation when I started working at (current financial company) and a TON of our trades were faxed every single day. We have 1 fax number for the entirety of our worldwide custody business which are manually routed by account number or instruction, by what I imagine are very bored little munchkins in Mumbai. What kills me is having to explain to clients that it takes 45 minutes for me to receive their fax because it first goes to India sort of, electronically…… It’s like yes! we made the technology even slower!
Then my next revelation was explaining to Grandpa Trader who was probably around long before PC’s roamed the earth, that YES SIR… SOMETIMES FAXES DON”T COME THROUGH! It may say complete on your end, but no little piece of paper spit out at my end. Surprise, fax technology is fallible. GASP.
Sam and kip could be best friends. “Weeee love technologyyyy”
why you always gotta hate on the 80’s…
Sam, you were just doing the economy a favor and stimulating it, weren’t you? You are so patriotic.
That is amazing. I’m going to email you all my faxes, and you can send them for me. I’ll send you a check for your troubles. (Another thing that’s going the way of the Atari…)