I had to spend $9.96 at the local FedEx Kinkos to fax four pages to my health insurance provider.
- Is this America?
- Are we the hub of technology?
- Why am I faxing documents like it’s 1999?
Also, just so you know, there’s no more depressing place in American than the FedEx Kinkos in Kalamazoo on a Thursday at 10AM.
It’s where career dreams go to die.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Today I’ve got to hand-write timesheets for 163 employees, which must then be sent by company courier to our central business office because they won’t accept them by fax. Miss the courier deadline and my options are paying for a private courier, driving 120 round-trip to drop them off myself, or having 162 really annoyed people wondering why they didn’t get paid for that week.
My whole company isn’t quite up to 1999. Which is an improvement over the other company I support, which isn’t quite up to 1899. Kill me now.
I know exactly what you mean! Yesterday I was trying to fax 6 pages over to the administrator of my FSA for dependent care. Pages kept getting stuck in feeder of the machine. Had to go back to my desk and reprint twice, very annoying. Wish they would give us an email we could scan to PDF; much easier!
And after that I had to send yet another fax over for the healthcare FSA. That entailed taping all of my RX receipts to one of those pages as well.
If it will save me (and the company as well) on tax liability it’s worth it; but I hear what you’re saying regarding faxing! I paid over $14,000 for childcare last year; only get to go up to $5000 on the FSA. That’s another blog topic though; today’s working parents do not always have it made.
You’re suggesting we should be beyond a point where physical documentation’s ever necessary?
It would have cost you 20.00 at my local library. They charge 5.00 a sheet!
If you have a scanner, find an online source that offers fax via email.
I do all of my faxing through Intermedia.net. It’s like $5 per month, and soooooo worth it. Faxes come in straight to my email as PDFs and faxes go out just by clicking print and adding the destination’s fax #.
Welcome to ‘08!
Starting this fall, CIGNA started their online site where you can do everything electronically. That would be much easier. Of course, other health insurances, with all their money, don’t know a lick about technology. No wonder they’re charging higher premiums and getting rich.
@Perrik It’s national payroll week, so we won’t kill you.
@Critter_TV OMG, the medical & healthcare FSA administration procedures are total bullshit. Faxing in forms & receipts like it’s 1996 totally sucks. I don’t miss that stuff.
@matt Give me PDF or give me death.
@HR Underling reason #459 why most libraries FAIL (except the one where my sister-in-law works
)
@Breanne I don’t like 2008 much, either. I hate scanning and faxing via email because then I can’t complain about it.
@Tracy Tran I think Americans are willing to put up with health care mediocrity because we fear BOOGAH BOOGAH socialized medicine. I say, let’s have the best of everything: technology, affordable & public health care, and common sense health care administration. I’M AN AMERI-CAN not an AMERICANT. I want the best that health care has to offer — and I don’t want to pay much for it.
All of this makes my work place sound like cutting edge. The HR guy (me) had to download the scanner drivers to the copier/scanner to get that to run. We had the damn thing for 4 years before the IT guys came down and connected it to the email server so we could scan to PDF.
Now everyone walks around the office saying, “I’ll PDF it to you…” ack. Dude, you don’t “PDF” something any more than you “DOC” or “XLS” something. ACK
But if you’re into having a fax machine, you can catch some decent ones on WOOT.com every now and again for short money.