Aaron, one of my coworkers, was showing me how to approve course work for continuing education. That’s what I do now; I’m one of the two continuing education specialists in my unit at the Department of Regulation and Licensing, so I’d better know how to do this at least a little better than the guy who’s application I was reviewing. He used the wrong form. Actually, he used an old form, which I guess we let slide for now.
It was also handwritten. “Thanks for typing it, buddy,” I griped as I struggled to decipher it.
Aaron went Pffft! “Who has a typewriter any more?” he asked. I almost told him Well, I’ve got ten, as a matter of fact, but something about the way he farted with his mouth like that prevented me. Instead, I just showed him the next application, which just happened to be typewritten.
I worked my way slowly through the steps to review the application while Aaron sat watching. He’s got to teach me that stuff some time, but nothing’s more boring than watching other people do a job you can do without thinking. I wasn’t surprised when his mind started wandering.
“Can I ask you,” he asked, “were you working in an office before e-mail? Because I just can’t conceive of how that worked.” This reminded me of the time my nephew watched, fascinated, as I demonstrated a typewriter, something he’d never seen before. “It’s like a computer, but with words on paper!” he said, awe in his voice.
Aaron wasn’t jerking my chain; he really couldn’t see how people used to get work done without e-mail. “It was actually a lot easier to get work done without e-mail,” I said, and when he gave me the puzzled dog look, I explained:
“When you get an e-mail, the person who sent it to you expects you to read it right now, right? And if they don’t hear from you in five or ten minutes, they send you another e-mail asking you what’s taking so long, don’t they? You might be right in the middle of answering an email when you see a new e-mail appear in your inbox from somebody else, and you stop and read the new one because you know that guy’s going to be way more pissed if you don’t answer him right away.
“But, back in the day, you had to type up a memorandum that would go into the mail and disappear for days. Which was kind of nice on the receiving end, because you weren’t constantly interrupted by messages coming in that had to be answered right now. The guy sending them didn’t know when you got them, did he? You could open all your mail, put it in a pile with the most urgent stuff on top, and then you didn’t have to worry about any new mail until you got to the bottom of the pile. It was bliss.”
I think next week I’m going to bring in my Remington Portable for show and tell.
This Is Drivel 