mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) (05/03/88)
It continually amazes me how far away we are from using the technology we have. The local phone company and the two banks I've dealt with in the past year all had clerks WRITE THE INFO ON SLIPS OF PAPER FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO KEY IN LATER when I dealt with them. This morning I went to the bank to stop payment on a check, and the teller could get a list of the checks that had been paid out of my account, but could NOT get the list sorted and could NOT search for a specific check! Most ridiculous/amazing of all: one recent Friday night I was in the local Safeway about 10 p.m. The computer system hooked up to the check stands SHUT DOWN THE CHECK STANDS COMPLETELY FOR FIVE MINUTES to run a report! I made a point of looking for the vendor of the system, and Guess Who? Hint: "Machines should work, customers should stand around and tap their feet while the ice cream melts." :) -- Mark McWiggins UUCP: uunet!intek01!mark DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong. INTERNET: intek01!mark@uunet.uu.net (206) 641-5014
NETOPRHM@NCSUVM.BITNET (Hal Meeks) (05/04/88)
I worked at a store selling computers, where we wrote all of our receipts by hand. We also did our inventory and ordering by hand, and wrote out our orders. We had a fax machine also, which was used to send handwritten messages (the telephone would have served as well). --hal
nelson_p@apollo.uucp (05/07/88)
>It continually amazes me how far away we are from using the technology >we have. The local phone company and the two banks I've dealt with >in the past year all had clerks WRITE THE INFO ON SLIPS OF PAPER FOR >SOMEONE ELSE TO KEY IN LATER when I dealt with them. This morning That's right. I called Everex (the computer company) the other day to find out whether they had any dealers in my area (Lowell,Mass, Nashua NH). They had to look it up on microfiche! And they had no way to tell where in the state the particular city or town was. Sigh... --Peter Nelson