Just (let go of) the fax, ma'am

I'm old, by many standards. I'm not going to euphemistically say "I'm getting old," or "I'm older than I used to be." No, I'm just old. (To baby boomers, I'm not of course, and if you recall our discussion about them recently, you'll understand that they've forcibly redefined things for the past 40 years. Now they're telling us that 60 is the new "middle age." If enough of them say it they'll all start to believe it and if it makes them feel better, fine.) As age takes over our bodies, breaking us down, it seemingly also paralyzes the part of our brain that has a willingness - not to mention a facility - to adapt to new things. For instance while I openly admit that during my youth Walkmans were fine with me, I don't like mpg-pods or whatever they're called - I'd rather be reading, primarily, and also my ear insides are shaped funny and don't take well to those bacteria-carrying ear-drum destroying ear thingies.

So it's not that I've resisted this technology solely because it's newfangled, but I will admit that when I pick up my wife's mpg-pod I look at it with the same confusion that I imagine overtakes Madonna when looking at one of the young children running through her home, disturbing her meditation, escaped from the safe confines of its au pair's arms, and I think of the scene in Zoolander when the two characters who are told the files are "in" the computer start to smack it around and take on an affect of apes, a nod to the scene in Kubrick's "2001" with the monkeys confronting the obelisk in the "dawn of man" sequence. Yeah, this looks like me.

But I do think I take advantage in the workplace of modern technology to save a lot of hassle and sometimes money. Of course the bureaucratic types sometimes resist, but when I get pushback I always play the what-I'm-proposing-is-better-for-the-environment card, which stunningly stifles scrutiny. In the capturing-the-moral-highground list of reasons for doing something, "for the environment" has enjoyed a stratospheric rise up the charts. In fact, let's take a look at the top five and some of those that have recently fallen far down the chart, compared to their positions 10 years ago. All data comes from moralhighground.com (a site off of DailyKos):

I'm doing (given action) for....

1. the children (unchanged)
2. some racial minority group (unchanged)
3. the environment (+32)
4. the Obama campaign/administration (unrated)
5. Lupus victims (+43....surprised us all. Was there a TV movie about this or a famous celebrity who caught it?)

Biggest losers:

31. the right for the president to get blow jobs from interns in the oval office (-25....seems odd to think of now, but this was a cause celebre way back when)
35. the homosexuals (-26.... Barney Frank's boorishness and Catholic priests' molestingness have sucked this one down)
42. Breast cancer survivors (-34....officials think the public has developed "race and/or pink fatigue")

TIP: Using this list you can create a good "get out of jail free" card in the workplace. Always have a sentence composing the top few of these ready and on hand! Example:

Boss: What the hell are you doing?
Me/you: Taking to heart President Obama's request that all Americans teach black children with Lupus how to recycle.
Boss: And that's why you're masturbating on my desk?
Me/you: Uhhh....well, you see....
Boss: Forget it....I find your argument impregnable. Here's a raise. And a tissue.

(Remember...you may have to adapt this and be creative)

Where the heck was I? Oh yeah, so at work I do things like conducting transactions and transferring documents electronically and say I'm saving money, paper, and the earth...that kind of thing. I try to suggest web meetings as opposed to face-to-face meetings. I mean, some of these things just make sense!

But here is the one that it's been hard to break people of - the fax machine. When I'm interacting with someone and encouraging that person to send documents over email and they resist and want to use the fax machine, you can almost guarantee that person is over 50. It's like 20 years ago in the office they said, "Okay, I've got this fax thing down and I'll learn email, and then I'm done!" And the "learn/adapt" switch in their brain got flipped to "off" and that was it.

Change can come slowly, but we must press forward. I imagine people carried buggy whips in their new "horseless carriages" for some time after the advent of the car. They couldn't tell you why, but it was probably "just in case." The founder of Twitter, on Colbert recently and defending his new form of unnecessary communication and pointing out previous resistance to change in this area said, "When they invented the telegraph people (resisted and) said 'if its good enough to send, its worth sending on a horse'" and not the newer technology. And old people hold on dearly to the fax, thinking it's the most whiz-bang thing.

(Don't even get me started on that most archaic slayer of forests, the phonebook. Why does whoever the group is who puts this thing out drop it on my doorstep every year? I carry this thing, reeking of carbon and screaming with the pain of countless murdered trees, straight to the dumpster...er, recycling bin.)

These old faxers will die off, of course, but the 50-year-olds are still "in their prime" and not quite middle aged, as they will tell you, so it's going to take awhile. So we all have to do our part. Mock people who want to use the fax. Call them "gramps." Ask them to borrow their rotary phone and if their VCR is still hooked up.

Who I'm loving today
My pastor's wife. She is unlike any other pastor's wife I've ever met...this is both good and bad. I think she no doubt takes a measure of how she can speak to a particular person or family and feels she can be less formal with us than with others in the church. With that said, so far I've heard her use the following words...in the church building: "teabagging," "blow job," and "shit," the latter two in front of my daughter. (And this is a Methodist church, not United Church of Christ, which is what many of you must be thinking.) Again, it didn't really bother me, but it was surprising to say the least. But that's just kinda the cloth from which she's cut (born and bred in Ballmer, for one thing). But love her, I do.

Who I'm trying to love today
Neighbors who make the obligatory joke when they see you washing your car.
For many people when they move to the suburbs a few things get programmed into their heads. They are as follows:

1. The city becomes far, far away and trips to it are a hassle, and it may be dangerous there, and all dining and arts options in the burbs suddenly become "just as good as anything in the city."

2. 8pm becomes "late."

3. The part of your brain that used to control your ability to parallel park and press the gas pedal when a stoplight turns green gets overtaken with synapses that focus on finding deals on flowers at Home Depot.

4. When you see your neighbor washing his car you MUST make a joke about him next washing YOUR car. This happened to me not once but twice on Sunday, with the guy on each side of our garage. The first had the pedestrian, "You can wash these two when you're done harharharhar," and the other was slightly more clever with, "Two coats of wax on mine, okay? harharharhar."

Douchebags.