Just fax it? So easy… Roight. As the LSCHP says, “Have you got a time machine?” (I like working for him.) I think today is the third time EVER that I have been forced to use a fax machine. After 30 years of working in, out, and on the fringes of the information technology field, fax machines remain inscrutable to me.

Today… I had to send a fax up to Siberia. Something that should’ve been faxed, oh, like three weeks ago but given the horrific circumstances of my recent so-called life, I am being given a lot of passes. I punched in the fax number. I even remembered to put a “9” in front of the number, which is necessary to get outside my work facility. The fax machine fed my documents through and dialed the number. Anh Anh Anh Anh. Busy signal. The crappy little digital readout said something incomprehensible about re-dialing. I was hopeful for a few minutes but nothing happened. I tried again. Same thing. And again. And again. I called the office I was trying to send the fax to. (I hate making phone calls too.) “We’re receiving all kinds of faxes today. We can’t figure out what’s wrong. It must be on your end.” I told them I would try again and I *begged* them to call me if they received the fax. I knew that was above and beyond their call of duty. Amazingly, they did call me to tell me that they did NOT receive my fax. Yeah… I know…

I went to a defect meeting and then I struck out for Staples. Maybe they could get my fax to go through. Or not. Turns out that Staples doesn’t even HAVE a fax machine. But the nice young man there told me that the UPS Store just down the row in Westgate did. Off I went. The nice young man *there* tried twice to send my fax. Anh Anh Anh Anh. Okay, I was now on plan C. Overnight mail. Of course, by then it was the lunch hour and it took me several rounds to get a parking place at the Stadium branch post office. And find the right envelope (I *did* remember to take a pen with me). And figure out which u-scan was *working*, because I sure did not want to wait in the long line inside the place.

I sure hope that envelope gets up there tomorrow and they don’t *lose* it and that they *act* on it. Otherwise, I have probably wasted all of my vacation time for the year 2012 sitting in a f*cking hospital. I can afford to go without pay for a few weeks. What I can’t do is use family leave time to take a vacation. And I do have a few small, not very exotic vacations planned this year. I mean the ones where I get to see my grown children and maybe hang out at the Moominbeach. Not the ones where I go to Cancun and get food poisoning. Sigh…

Oh, this will probably get worked out but WHY DOES THIS STUFF HAVE TO BE SO F*CKING HARD? I was practically in tears when I finally got back to work after that little odyssey today. My productivity today? Maybe three hours of actual work… And why the f*ck do we still have to use FAX machines for this stuff? FAX is dinosaur technology. If I had been able to handle all of this via the web or even email, I’d’ve had it done *weeks* ago. And I wouldn’t have had to interrupt busy receptionists with stupid phone calls.

I was really annoyed with that video that went viral over the weekend. The one where the dad shoots the laptop. I am still annoyed with him but I sure felt like shooting a few fax machines today.

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