In this age of wi fi, texting, smart communications, apps, hot spots and you-name-it technological advances, can there really be a downside to technology?
Yup.
Yesterday I may have been the first casualty since I couldn’t fill in a formal stock certificate!
Having the dubious honor of being the Secretary of my landowners’ corporation, I am responsible for issuing new stock certificates to new landowners. Said Stock Certificates are necessarily very fancy pre-printed, and imposingly serious documents and the information is always typed in.
We have two new landowners now so Secretary Dor was all set to fill in and issue their certificates. The problem was I couldn’t figure out how to type in the names without a typewriter!
Write in the names you say? Yes, I could do that and did,
But then the back of the certificate required a 50 word paragraph about who is entitled to own the stock, etc. And I couldn’t type that in either.
“Does anyone own a typewriter?” I asked the other members at our annual meeting.
No response.
“Maybe an attorney could do it for us,” they finally suggested
How ridiculous can that be – not to be able to sit down and type in a few words on the right lines?
Now mind you, there can be no mistakes made on these documents so if we tried to print the information from the computer onto the document we risked a spacing error and having a big mess.
So Secretary Dor simply gave up.
But thank goodness for Bill. He loves technological challenges and he measured and tested and figured out a way to transfer the paragraph to the right place in the right space. It looks very professional too.
On the other hand, I didn’t calculate correctly for writing in the names so the last name on one wound up going uphill off the designated lines.
Ah well, I have heard they are no longer teaching handwriting and penmanship in schools (another loss) since everybody texts. No doubt the Secretary who comes after me will fill in stock certificates with the letter X!
So go the casualties of modern technology.
Does anyone even remember what a typewriter is?
I typed on an actual typewriter at school years ago, but at that stage they were electric ones 🙂
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Wow – when I saw your photo at the beginning of your post, I had to smile: Saturday, while antiquing with friends, I saw an old typewriter, similar to the picture. I looked at it for a LONG time, wondering where I could put it….. I haven’t come up with anywhere yet, but I may be going back to that shop this weekend. And if it’s still there…..
And we have a manual typewriter at our office – just for the reasons you mentioned in your post. (It’s not nearly as old as the one in your photo though!)
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Cheers to Bill. I’m with you. I have never been able to calculate filling in the blanks for certificates, invites, etc. with a computer. No typewriter here. I don’t remember when we gave up my Corona electric typewriter. My mother still has her non-electric Remington.
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Not only do I remember the typewriter, I remember using a mimeograph machine to make copies. All that messy ink…yuck!
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Another antique…that’s what the typewriter is. Just like us! 😉
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love this!!!
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Ah Yes ! The good old underwood typewriter. That is the only one I can say I really liked. Your fingers fit into the keys because of the ring around the edges which made your fingers feel comfortable while typing. Also they were so light which enabled you to type quite fast. Wish I had one now. Did you solve your problem Dora ?
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Oh, yes, I remember what a typewriter is! In high school I learned to type on a manual typewriter and then graduated to electric ones later. I thought those IBM Selectics with built-in correcting was wonderful. Finally came word processing on a computer! I don’t want to give up technology but I do write letters. And i don’t have a typewriter anymore so I took worry what I would do it I needed to fill in a form! Maybe my Bill would come to my rescue!
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I do, and u can B sure I wd use it rthr than txt if I had 1. 🙂
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I recall the same learning process – from manual to elec. to word processing. Now it’s “texting.” Thank you to the Bill’s of the world who come to the rescue filling out forms! 🙂
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All is well and the form filling problem was solved with good old pen and ink! thanks Rita. 🙂
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I prefer the term “vintage.” 🙂
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I hate to admit it, but I reember the mimeograph machine too! And I agree – “Yuck!” 🙂
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Who woulda thought it – that we would be craving a typewriter now? Your Mom is brilliant to have hung onto her manual.
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Imagine a typewriter in an antique shop! Maybe you could put it on a high shelf in the office – as an object d’ art. 🙂
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And I thought the electric ones were the last of the best technology. Nothing would ever replace it.
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I feel your pain. We have a typewriter at work and a young patient came in and yelped “what’s that?” We should have just drawn some photos on the cave wall to explain it to him, because he really couldn’t grasp the who process.
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I can totally relate to this story. I have worked in a law office for 25 years, and over that time there have been a lot of changes in technology. A few months back our typewriter finally died, and the boss did not want to buy a new one. This led to difficulties because there are still things (like corporate share certificates) that we complete with a typewriter. Finally, we complained enough that he found a used one to keep us happy. We don’t need it often, but there are times when it is still indispensable.
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I never thought I would live to see the day when a used typer would become a little-used accessory to the office. Glad you confirmed my suspicions though Cindy! What is the world coming to?
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Hahahaha! I love the idea of drawing pics on a cave wall to explain things to the young. On the other hand it may actually come to that. We seem to be going backwards in so many ways.
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You know me – I love anything electronic. However, even I sometimes feel like it’s moving all a little too quickly :).
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Time for me to put my old typewriter to use and rent it out. Now where would I find a replacement ribbon, I wonder.
Interesting post.
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Anyone remember “Secretarial Schools”? Typing and shorthand (do they still teach or use SH) were required business courses in high school.I couldn’t master either then. I had to take a year of of secretarial school after graduation in order to eventually manage a very poor 35 wpm typing speed. Shorthand, like Latin, I was never able to master. I did excel on adding machines and eventually calculators, I mastered bookkeeping. Ah, the poor job choices women had in 50’s and 60’s. On a computer I can type 65 wpm or more. It was the fear of making error and the chore of correcting those mistakes that kept me from advancing on a typewriter. I don’t have those fears on a computer. I don’t miss typewriters at all. Texting – never done it. I own a dumb phone and I’m going to keep it 😛
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That’s the challenge in going back in time. The old technology can be found, but what about accessories like ribbon?
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Love it that you own a “dumb phone.” Sometimes I miss mine but trying to adjust to this newfangled thing anyway. I do hate typing with my thumbs though! 🙂
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Yes. I remember the typewriter.
I was simply too absent-minded to use it correctly.
I kept forgetting to do the manual carriage return…..and was constantly typing off the end of the paper.
Oh and trying to correct mistakes was extremely difficult and messy. There was no convenient “delete’ button.
Thank goodness for the computer that sets the margins and wraps around, and can easily delete anything I don’t want to keep. My work looks much, much better now!
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So funny about you typing off the end of the paper! And I love the “delete” button too. I just saw a manual typewriter for sale though – for $279! I could use that for filling in forms.
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