Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Technophobe

Mary: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Mary."

Mrs. Analog: "Yes, I faxed you a copy of my records last week, and Dr. Grumpy decided not to take my case. So I'd like them back."

Mary: "He deleted them already, I'm sorry. If we're not going to be seeing you, we don't keep a copy."

Mrs. Analog: "WHAT? You should have just mailed them back!"

Mary: "Ma'am, you sent them to our digital fax number, so all documents faxed go directly to the e-mail. There were never any paper records here."

Mrs. Analog: "But you still could have mailed them back. I mean, how much effort would it have been to pull them out of the e-mail, put them in an envelope, and mailed them back to me? I'd have paid you for the postage."

Mary: "You... can't do that. It's a digital file."

Mrs. Analog: "Nonsense. And they were my only copy!"

Mary: "But... you said you faxed them. Isn't there a copy of them on your fax machine?"

Mrs. Analog: "Is there supposed to be? When I fax stuff the feeder just spits out paper on the bottom."

Mary: "Those are the things you just faxed."

Mrs. Analog: "Does that mean the paper is digital now? Can't you fax the email to me at least?"

18 comments:

  1. Never heard of a rejection by a doctor where I live. How does that work? Can you be terribly sick and have all specialists just say "nah, not feeling it today"?

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    1. Doctors often decline referrals if it is outside of their specialty or area of expertise.

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  2. I work in Healthcare IT. This is what I deal with almost every day.

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  3. I was just thinking of this right now, how I have used up such and such quota of the amount of whatever I pay for on the cell phone or the android whatever to have this 'thing' that comes out of this device available to me whenever I turn on the button, and yet if I don't pay the bill it won't be there and there's no way I can 'reach' into the thing, and 'pull out' the thing that I want to show up on the screen of this metallic gadget that I can hold in my hand. Poor lady. Like Rip van Winkle, she's woken up from the centuries-long nap and found herself in lala-land. Scary.

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  4. The world has become a very complicated place for University of Michigan Class of 1975.

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  5. There is no amount of explaining that will ever make sense to Mrs. Analog. As usual, Mary needs a raise.

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  6. Susan in Dallas beat me to it... yet another raise for Mary!!

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  7. In reply to kire at 4:12AM, if a physician feels like they cannot provide adequate care for a patient for any reason, then they have the right (nay, the obligation) to decline treatment. Of course, this doesn't apply to life-threatening emergency cases or in situations where there is no other specialist reasonably available to care for that patient. I'm sure Dr. Grumpy declined treating this patient and offered a referral to someone who could.

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  8. "And does that mean that toilet paper is digital now too? Because fingers are digits, right?"

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  9. This makes my brain hurt. So so much.

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  10. Sometimes, stupidity should hurt.

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  11. Hubby had a boss who famously told him to copy something, and then fax it because he should only fax a copy since they were required to keep the original on site.

    MBee

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  12. I'm out of blank copy paper. could you fax me a blank sheet so that i can make some blank photocopies? thanks.

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  13. Packer: It's kind of complicated for those of us from the classes of 1982 and 1999, too.

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  14. And the class of 1966 just hopes there is a grandchild around when you need them!

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  15. I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

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So wadda you think?