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On Technology
Sep. 1st, 2006 09:30 amI am sitting in my office in the midst of chaos this morning, all because some of our network servers are down and we can't access e-mail, calendars, contact lists and some of the network drives. One of the attorneys I work with forgot about a 9am meeting he had scheduled this morning and managed to tell someone else he'd see them at the same time, resulting in a phone call from the original appointment wondering where he was and much groveling on the part of his secretary to the other party for the abruptly cancelled meeting that had just been scheduled. Kind of reminded me of overbooking an airline flight.
I hate to admit that I am old enough and have worked long enough to remember when the biggest piece of technology in the office was a table-top copy machine. Not your fancy schmancy copiers of the present, this pathetic little model copied one page at a time, sans collators and sheet feeders. And, as I recall, changing the toner nearly always resulted in a humongous mess of ink on the table, on me, etc. Then came fax machines and memory typewriters. These three machines resulted in making carbon paper obsolete (hallelujah!), although Liquid Paper was still our friend.
My very first computer in the office was a cumbersome desk top with an amber screen that only did word processing and records management functions. There was no real memory, so files were saved on floppy disks. Although the computers improved with time, I don't recall having e-mail at the office until about 1994 or 1995 and remember that it was a big deal that the company had gone "online" like this. Communication has progressed at lightening speed, and we've turned into a bunch of instant gratification junkies who depend on making decisions and sharing information in an instant. I fully expect phone calls shortly from people wondering why I haven't responded to their e-mails this morning.
BTW, we actually do have a little memory typewriter of undeterminable age sitting in a corner in our area. I think the secretaries use it to fill out forms that aren't online, although I can't tell you the last time I heard it used.
On another note, hooray for the three day weekend and the fact that the execs took today off. Maybe I'll actually get something done while they're out!
I hate to admit that I am old enough and have worked long enough to remember when the biggest piece of technology in the office was a table-top copy machine. Not your fancy schmancy copiers of the present, this pathetic little model copied one page at a time, sans collators and sheet feeders. And, as I recall, changing the toner nearly always resulted in a humongous mess of ink on the table, on me, etc. Then came fax machines and memory typewriters. These three machines resulted in making carbon paper obsolete (hallelujah!), although Liquid Paper was still our friend.
My very first computer in the office was a cumbersome desk top with an amber screen that only did word processing and records management functions. There was no real memory, so files were saved on floppy disks. Although the computers improved with time, I don't recall having e-mail at the office until about 1994 or 1995 and remember that it was a big deal that the company had gone "online" like this. Communication has progressed at lightening speed, and we've turned into a bunch of instant gratification junkies who depend on making decisions and sharing information in an instant. I fully expect phone calls shortly from people wondering why I haven't responded to their e-mails this morning.
BTW, we actually do have a little memory typewriter of undeterminable age sitting in a corner in our area. I think the secretaries use it to fill out forms that aren't online, although I can't tell you the last time I heard it used.
On another note, hooray for the three day weekend and the fact that the execs took today off. Maybe I'll actually get something done while they're out!
