Technology and Presumptions.

When I worked in an office we sometimes went to the small sandwich shop across the street, even though this often meant standing in a long line, so we were fairly hopeful when a notice circulated through the office that the shop was now taking fax orders.One day we all faxed in our orders and went to the sandwich shop, where, as usual, we stood in a long line. During this herd behavior we all assumed that when we made it to the head of the line, we would alert the employee to our previously faxed order, who would then hand us our sandwiches. This proved a valid assumption up until the “hand us our sandwiches” part. Instead, when we told the employee we’d faxed the order and identified it by name, he walked to a fax machine, rifled through the faxes, then handed it to the person making the sandwiches. So with the exception of wasting some paper and the cost of faxing, the technology made no difference in our sandwich experience.

This adventure replayed in my head with a more recent experience with my bank. I went into the online bill pay area of my account and noticed that a payment I’d made more than a week earlier hadn’t actually occurred. I called the intended recipient and found out that they had not, in fact, received it. You can just fill in the blanks from your personal experiences as you imagine the calls through various voice menus to customer service people at both the bank and the intended recipient of the funds. Ultimately, I learned that though I might make this particular payment online, this simply sets in motion a process that involves sending an actual physical check by U.S. mail. As it happens, I can accomplish this exact same task with a pen, a checkbook, a stamp, and the mailbox at the end of my driveway. Here again, I had made the flawed assumption that the technology itself was providing me with some benefit.

Sometimes we are so enamored with technology we assume it’s been implemented in a way that offers us a real benefit. My new consumer technology policy is: trust but verify.