IMO, not as bad as the time I tried to use my debit card to check out library books, then within a few minutes tried to use my library card to pay for purchases at a nearby store. 
I scanned my library keytag at the allergist the other day. It scanned - they are both barcodes after all - and then popped up a big message saying INVALID CODE. Oops. In my defense I have three little tags hanging off my keychain: library, gym, allergist.
Lets go down to the quarry and throw stuff in, no.
Intuitively, this doesn’t seem right. I would think that buttons would be worse with messy hands. Stuff would get into the cracks and crevices. I’m always amazed when I turn my keyboard upside down and shake it how much crap has got into it.
So, you have a tool that does what you want it to do. Nothing more or less. Just say that and quit being so defensive about it.
What annoys me, as the user of a phone that is not connected to the internet, is the growing assumption that everyone has a smartphone these days. We don’t. I have nothing against smart phones. I’m sure if I had one I’d find it useful. I just don’t see a need for one in my life, and since my current phone is still working and I’m on a tight budget don’t feel I can justify the expense of an upgrade right now.
Most people don’t care, a few (generally young) have expressed surprise that I don’t have one, and once or twice someone has said something like “that’s weird” or “get one” (fine - are you going to pay for it? No? Then you don’t get a say.) More and more, though retailers are assuming you have one. There are various deals and discounts I don’t get because I don’t have one… but since I buy very little these days (that darn budget again) I probably wouldn’t be taking advantage of those deals anyhow.
Eh, that’s just marketing. Don’t take it personally.
Like it or not, from a marketing point of view, you’re in a minority now. It makes little sense for a retailer to try and target you when they can just direct all their budget and efforts toward marketing to the 90% (or whatever the total may be) of people that do have smartphones.
Particularly in this case - you said yourself that you don’t have the money to spend anyway, and I’d guess (although admittedly I don’t know) that the majority of non-smartphone users these days are in lower income brackets. So why would a company spend money trying to market to a segment that almost by definition won’t buy their products anyway?
The key point there isn’t the check, it’s that you’re stuck behind an old person. Mortuary bait will take forever to get through the checkout line by any method of payment. If they’re paying cash they’ll root through their purses and wallets for what feels like weeks to fish out a nickel. If they do use plastic, watching them figuring out the PIN entry and such is like watching a chimpanzee try to fix a clock.
If I paid for things with checks I could write one as fast as I can use my credit card. Old people do nothing quickly.
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
Be aware of the people behind you. Have your checkbook out. Have it ready to go, with a pen.
[/QUOTE]
Well, this is the other thing that factors in, and it’s not just at the grocery store.
A few weeks ago I was flying on business and, as always seem to be the case, the passengers were lined up in the jetway and it took forever to load onto the plane. The person in front of me started whining about the wait to get on the plane.
When we got in there, the person in front of me then took what felt like five fucking days to get into her seat. She had (not exaggerating anymore) ten to fifteen minutes of lining up to know that she was about to be seated on a commercial airplane and would have to put her shit away and sit down, and an hour or more in the terminal to ponder this inevitable event, and when the time came to do it she was hopelessly unprepared to do so. Nothing was in its right place; she had to take this stuff out of that stuff and put those things down and pack those things and do this and that all while standing in the aisle and thereby blocking me and 50 other people for another minute. The very reason we’d been lined up for so long, which SHE HAD WHINED ABOUT, was the very thing she was doing. The reason getting into the plane after boarding has started takes so long is this sort of stupidity. When I finally got past her to my seat my ass was in the seat in three seconds. I knew what I had to do and my stuff was in my hands ready to go.
I don’t do this because I’m desperate to sit down, nor am I some time-frantic maniac. I did that because I didn’t want to hold up the people behind me. I was aware that fifty people behind me also wanted to get to their seats and my getting the hell out of their way would help them do that. So I did my little part to make other people’s lives a bit less frustrating. If there is any single piece of wisdom that should govern a person’s life it’s this:
**You are a supporting character in a very big story. **
Mr. and Ms. Oblivious don’t see that. They see themselves as the central character, and so it doesn’t matter if they chat up the teller for two minutes after they’re done while people wait, or spend an hour paying for their groceries, or take forever to sit down, or talk during the movie, or whatever.
Last stat I saw it was still about 50/50 smartphones/stupidphones.
But yeah, those with smartphones are more likely to have disposable income, be status/fashion conscious, and prone to buying gadgets.
Maybe not ten minutes per check, but it does take a few minutes if you’re paying bills and also need to put your address on the envelopes. Then, furthermore, if you’re really doing things properly you need to enter each check number and amount into the register subtract all the amounts.
I now have a pretty thin wallet. I realized that all my family pictures were on my smartphone, so I didn’t need them in my back pocket.
What? In case you forget what they look like between the time you go to work and come home? Or are you the type who inflicts family photos on co-workers?:mad: Forcing me to lie and say they look wonderful when I really want to say, “Your son looks like a cast member from ‘Deliverance’…Oh, that’s your daughter?! <shudder>”
I was struck on the head by a MANGO while administering aid to some POOR UNFORTUNATES at a LEPER COLONY and it impaired by SHORT-TERM MEMORY. I’m SORRY for YOU being IMPAIRED by a LACK OF COMPASSION. I will PRAY for you.
I was content with my fliphone until I saw the young lady who cleans the ladies’ room at work–checking on her Little Kitty Smart Phone. Don’t I earn a* little* more than she does?
So I got an Android from Virgin–my cheapo cell provider. (Not the Little Kitty model, alas.) And it’s quite useful. Google Maps has Houston Metro schedules, so I can compare methods of getting from Here to There. There’s room for a bunch of music & a small stack of Kindle books–even when not connected. News, weather, etc.
I’m hardly a First Adapter but I’m glad those folks are doing the pioneering…
I must be an extremely annoying and “superior” luddite – apart from owning a computer, I’m totally out of the picture re hi-tech communication – this post has me feeling like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, musing thus: “The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English”.
Yes, this. (Post snipped for convenience). When I get on the plane…well, let’s back up. When I pack for the plane, I am READY. I have my check-in bag packed and locked so when I get there I just write the label and turn it in. If possible (If I can get to the labels) I am filling them out while waiting in line, or I will fill it out while he checks us in.
Then when we get to the plane, I already have my backpack in my hands. I carry a backpack and a tiny purse onto the plane. The backpack easily and quickly slings into an overhead compartment. I sit, and once I am seated, I put in my headphones - but remain aware if people need me to get up to get to the inner seats.
When I get out, I do the same thing. I am ready to go, and when it’s my turn, I pull my backpack down in a fluid movement and carry it in my hands as I am walking out.
This is how I operate my entire life. When I go to the grocery store I have my card out and ready. When I’m getting on the train I know where my train ticket is. These days we’ve started checking in with our tablets; I have my tablet open, on, and already navigated to the page.
I am aware that I am not the only person in the world, why can’t everyone remember that? It’s the same people who don’t put on their turn signals and switch lanes without checking.
I refuse to use an ATM or a cell phone to make a deposit to my checking account because my bank has lost my money in the past and it’s just … gone, never to be seen again. I go to the teller and stand in the godsforsaken line for the one teller’s window that’s open so that I can get a receipt that shows that I actually deposited that money/check.
I never use a check at the supermarket, I use a debit card, but if you do want to use a check, you just hand over a blank check and the cash register reads the banking information from your account just as if it was a debit card.
This is what keeps me feeling superior to my friends: my wallet is a 2.5x4" card holder that I keep in my front pocket. Credit, insurance and library cards; license and a “Good For One Free Beer” card.
I’ll meet my friends at the local watering hole, and the others will pull out their wallets and toss them on the bar before they sit down. Because they’d have instant sciatica if they ever sat on their Costanza Wallets. They even bitch about how much they suffer from all that bulk…
…So they once had a “who’s got the most impractical junk in their wallet?” competition.
The bar was soon littered with obscure crumpled receipts and loyalty cards from stores near their parents’ houses. One had a coffee punch card from a cafe in Seattle that closed a decade ago.
I was excited for my best friend Pete: “Now you can toss all that stuff and carry your wallet around painlessly!” Nope. The other guys threw away a few things, but amid the heckling, Pete’s two inch stack of uselessness all went back in his wallet.
Which he keeps leaving on bars and having to run back for…
I always carry a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, and, if I’m ever arrested, I intend to display it.
It won’t get me out of being arrested…but it might amuse the arresting officer.
I’ve got something close… a card from The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in DC. Assuming the officer will sympathize with someone who’s just been to “the nation’s monument to law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty”.
If I were smart, I’d order a bumper sticker or their license plate and maybe avoid getting pulled over in the first place.