Can anyone offer any defence -- any at all -- for the continued use of fax machines by Irish companies?
Incredibly, there are still firms and agencies who send faxes into Irish newsrooms. What the mugs sending them don't realise is that no-one reads them.
A particular bugbear of mine is the 'loan agreement' form that must -- of course -- be faxed back to the firm supplying the test kit. For some bizarre reason, a greyish piece of print paper with a bitty scrawl holds some sort of official importance for these companies.
I decided I had enough of this. So, on Monday, I decided to make a stand. A company asked me to send back a signed loan agreement form by fax. So I signed it -- with an 'X'.
When it was received, I got a call from the company's head of marketing.
"Sorry, but that form doesn't seem to be signed," she said. "There's just an X there."
"No, that's my signature," I replied.
"But it's just an X," she said. "We need a proper signature."
"But that is my signature," I replied. "What's so different between that and an illegible scrawl, anyway? They're just squiggles."
"Well, it looks more official if there's a signature, even if it is scrawled," she said. "Could you send it again?"
"But that IS my signature," I insisted, holding a straight tone. "Seriously, what is the legal difference between a squiggle and an X, if both are represented as genuine signatures?"
"Okay, yes, okay. Well I'm supposed to get a signature and I'm not sure that an 'X' will do. Can I get back to you on Wednesday?"
"Yep."
I got word today that my 'X' has been accepted as a signature. No, I do not feel bad for torturing them. It is a stupid, stupid convention that means nothing and is completely outdated. Get with the 1990s, for God's sake.
Ha ha priceless! I remembering having to get those loan agreement forms signed for TomTom whenever we sent out review units. From what I can recall you could scan them through and email them back. It's still a bit bothersome, I know. Perhaps the greatest fallacy of all was the IE Domain Registry requesting companies to fax their request for a dot.ie domain name on company headed paper.
Posted by: Orlaith | March 18, 2009 at 09:00 PM
Fax machines are very useful in screenwriting.
Posted by: Simon McGarr | March 19, 2009 at 07:27 AM
Fax is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you have to admit that it remains a lot less clunky than sending a scanned file via email for many people - scan in the document, save it in the correct format, email... Versus, scan, dial, away.
We still get a lot of purchase orders through via fax. It's quicker than snail mail and if they're not going to scan every PO and email it across, so be it, I won't say no to money.
Many people also have a mistrust of electronic bookkeeping. Email it and there's no hard copy, they'll tell you. If a tree hasn't been felled in the process, it didn't happen.
I could go on... In theory I agree with your argument that the fax is outdated given all our gizmo's today, but at the end of the day it's human behaviour that drives these things, and nobody has produced a solution as elegant and widely understood as the fax machine.
As for loan forms, grr. Alright, I can understand them wanting a paper trail if they're firing a few hundred/thousand quid out the door, admittedly. Anyone got a better way of doing it?
Posted by: Aaron | March 19, 2009 at 09:03 AM
I print, scan and e-mail those files back.
Not because I find that easier but because I just don't have access to a Fax machine.
In general the loan agreement forms are pretty pointless anyway and I don't see how, as you say, a squiggle on a page makes any real difference.
Why can't they send a doc file, I'll type my name out in the space and mail it back? Surely that's just as good as me writing it on the page?
Posted by: Adam | March 19, 2009 at 08:19 PM