It took a good three minutes just to open this blank “New Post” in WordPress.
It’s 9:53 p.m.
I started at 9:05. The project: scan two checks, deposit them electronically, pay the amount of one of them to the Mayo electronically, and set up automatic bill-pay to have the S-corporation pay Cox for the DSL connection and have my personal checking account cover $28 a month, the usual charge for the phone.
Between the iMac moving with the speed of a stampeding snail, Firefox hanging the entire system with its damnable “slow script” messages, and the scanner’s glacial operating pace, it took FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to deposit two checks and make two payments.
During the entire three-quarters of an hour, I’m getting exactly ZERO work done. It’s now five to ten. I haven’t had dinner, I haven’t walked the dog, and I’ve lost another hour of time that should have been used to write the SMRH index.
When I started this chore, I figured it would take more time than is desirable. But I didn’t expect it to consume nearly an hour, between the interminable task of scanning and e-depositing two measly checks and the five-minute job of setting up a couple of electronic bill-pays.
That’s what makes me clench my teeth until they break: frustration. And (other than losing a $725 pair of progressive glasses) few things frustrate me more than wasting my time.
Sometimes it seems to me that a goodly chunk of my time is wasted. Maybe half of every day. Between the bureaucratic diddlings-around imposed on us by corporate Web pages and flicking phone trees and the pointless crap inflicted by the government and the endless grinding of computer operating systems, HALF OUR LIVES ARE FLICKING WASTED!
!@#$%^&*!
👿
We’re definitely too old for this! I was really hoping you would find your glasses.
@ frugalscholar: A two-year-old is too old to have her time wasted and her nerves frazzled. Maybe especially a two-year-old is!
So far I haven’t come across them. Have gone back to wearing contact lenses. It’s a hassle and the residual hydrogen peroxide hurts a bit, but at least I can see through them. Sort of. The truth is, though, you can only see through progressives sort of.
I know you are trying to not spend excess money, but if this is a chore that the bank is going to make you take on, a new scanner might be worth it in the time saved?
@ Susie: Good thought! The S-corp could afford to buy one. I looked at reviews, though, I couldn’t figure out whether any of them would be much improvement. Then the end-of-semester storm season blew in, followed straightaway by two big projects, and I haven’t had time to think about that any further.
If anyone has a suggestion for a good printer/scanner/copier or maybe just a freestanding scanner that works fast, I’d welcome it. Couldn’t tell if the ones that are designed to copy receipts would give me enough control to scan the image at the desired resolution and crop to the bank’s specifications…there’s just not enough information on the box, and those gigantic computer stores have no staff who can (or who care to) help you.
In my hometown, an electronic store sells laser printer – of course used ones – for $50. I bought an inkjet for $65 last year for my state taxes. It has everything but no fax.
Why don’t you just spend 44 cents & mail in the deposits? Or drive them by (most banks still have night deposit boxes if you can’t conveniently get there when the bank is open. If the bank requires that much work to get them readable, I’d pass until they get more user friendly.
…and I LOVE my progressives.
@ valleycat1: The last time I mailed checks to the credit union — something over a thousand dollars’ worth of checks from clients — they LOST the things. Six weeks later, as I was getting on the phone to start telling people to please cancel the checks and write me new ones, the CU called to say they’d found them. So that was that with mailing.
The credit union only has a couple branches:
* one on the ASU Main campus, which was convenient when I was working there–it’s a 40-mile round trip from my house, plus a 20-minute walk from parking;
* and one on the ASU West campus, which was convenient when I was working there. Now that I’m no longer working at West, I have exactly zero other reasons to go west of the freeway. Glendale is a separate city from Phoenix. It’s a long way out of my way, however you look at it, especially when gas creeps toward $4/gallon.
To deposit checks manually, I have to gather all my checks and then about the end of the month schlep to the West campus on my way home from the community college; this adds about 15 or 20 extra miles to the commute and involves idling in the drive-through line until the cows come home or else parking and walking into the branch office, allowing me to wave good-bye to the guy who was sitting in his car at the head of the drive-through when I walked past him on the way in.
A side-trip to the West campus adds about a half hour or 40 minutes to my drive home. So really, even if it takes 20 or 30 minutes to scan the checks, it’s less time consuming, doesn’t waste gas, and doesn’t put my life at risk on the homicidal streets of Phoenix.
Occasonally I think about changing credit unions — Desert Teachers has a branch more or less on my beaten path — but the hassle involved is daunting.