Doug Rants – “Hard Copies Suck”

I've been working with computers on a daily basis for 20 years now. Basically in today's world everyone uses some type of computer in their daily lives.

Microsoft Word has been around since the late 1990's and for over almost two decades people have been able to type up information, save it to a file, and share it with anyone on the planet. So why do people still insist on printing it out and handing it to you?

I have had several co-workers hand me a piece of paper, and ask me to make changes or write up something based on the information on the hard copy.

What people fail to see, is if you just e-mail it as an attachment, the other person can copy and paste to another document and make a modification without re-typing the whole flippin' thing!

I have had people give me information they wrote out on a piece of paper, not only did I have to try and decipher their chicken scratch, but I also had to sit down and type out the whole thing out.

I once worked with someone who would constantly handed me a piece of paper that he typed up on his computer, and would ask me to make some adjustments to the commercial script.

I would say to this person, "Can you e-mail this to me, so I can just add or take out some of the information that you have already written?"

His reply was always, "Well I'm not sure if I saved it." or "I don't know where I saved it to." Sheesh.

That same person also would print out a hard copy of something and tell me to pass the information on to my department...wait what?? I could have forwarded all of it in an e-mail, but instead I had to draft up the e-mail myself.

I have seen several office memos printed out and placed in every mailbox or on the desk of every employee in the company, but why? We all have e-mail access! How about sending the memo through an office e-mail. Not only will you save a tree, but a lot of headaches.

I know it kind of sounds petty, but hard copies are a complete waste of time and money.

If you work with people that still live in 1990, show them this article.