The Technology Addiction

I'll be the first person to admit that the idea of forgetting my iPhone at home is enough to make me hyperventilate and come down with a case of the cold sweats. If you're like me, you're whole life is stored in your phone. I'm nauseatingly punctual, but I would be more willing to be late somewhere then have to go even an hour without my phone with me.

But it struck me today, just how ridiculously dependent we are on the technology of our phones (and other devises). We're so dependent in fact, that we literally forget basic functions of "outdated technology."

When I arrived at work this morning, the front counter was in a complete tizzy because they couldn't get a fax to go through to a customer. We're not talking an overly geeky group of tech guys either... We're talking about a group of guys that I thank my lucky stars every day that they've figured out how to turn on their computers. The consistent rejection of the fax was met with a stream of expletives and sheer outrage that this machine was a piece of junk. They complained that they've had problems with it from the moment it was installed and that no one (meaning our IT guy) had bothered to replace it despite they're repeated requests.

Since they were in such an uproar, I took the quote back to my desk and faxed it over to the customer. Once I was finished I went back up front to investigate just what could possibly be going on with the machine. See, they use the same kind of machine and mine had worked without any errors and I've never had a problem with it. After closer examination I discovered exactly what was happening. They were not dialing the 1 before the phone number!

Now I understand that in cell phone land it simply auto-corrects this for you and dials the number you actually mean to dial. Land lines people are just not that sophisticated. So when sending a traditional fax, please remember to dial 1 and then the number. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Irritating Surprise

Ugh. It's been a rough 24 hours over here. We got a bit of a rude surprise last night when we discovered $500 suddenly missing from James' account. The company he works for was recently bought out by Ecolab and it turns out that they completely screwed up his child support. Evidently they "forgot" to take it out of one of his checks so instead it was simply auto-deducted from his account without warning. It has been coming out of his check without a problem for the last 6 years, so we never even thought to make sure they were taking it. Certainly not what we were expecting when we were double checking the balance last night to head out to the store. A few weeks back they had messed up his overtime and failed to put it on the check it was supposed to be. By the time they added it on to the next check taxes took it all and then some. It was if he had never worked it at all. You would think that a multi-million dollar corporation could handle payroll, wouldn't you?

As a result, we will not be attending the wedding for my co-worker that we were supposed to this weekend. We simply cannot swing the gift after that. I'm not too broken up about not going really. I didn't particularly want to go in the first place. I'm not exactly a fan of weddings or this particular co-worker. But it is completely embarrassing to be the only person not going from my office. I had to make up a lame excuse of not having a baby sitter for Lena and Anne. I told her my sister can't watch them because she has to work now.  

This co-worker is already not exactly the nicest person in the world to deal with on a good day. So my telling her this morning that I was not going to make it to her wedding has resulted in a very chilly day. Lots of eye rolling, lots of dirty looks, and she's really not speaking to me either at the moment. I wonder just how long this will last exactly?