Life in the 21st Century

[cmdr_zoom]

A few minutes ago, I got curious about the remaining balance on the debit card that I was issued for my unemployment benefits. (Seems they don't want to mail out checks anymore, and I can't rightly blame them; but in that case, I'd rather just get direct deposit, so I went through the hoops about a week back and am now running out what's already on the card.) So I went to their website and got that figure. Fine so far.

I also remembered that, oops, I haven't claimed benefits for last week yet. So I pop over to that section of the oregon.gov site, enter my SSN and PIN, and check their usual questions (yes I was, yes I could, yes I did, but no, I didn't). There, that's taken care of.

Then I thought, hey, I need to pay off my credit card balance - it's usually due around the first of the month. So I went to Citicards and authorized that payment. Name, password, five clicks and done. It'll be paid tomorrow.

Of course, since I paid rent today and the credit card just now, I'd better check my bank account and make sure I have enough in checking to cover it. Turns out I was short, but a few clicks later, sufficient funds will be transferred tomorrow from savings. Great.

So that's all done, and it hits me:
I've just made four transactions - one with a credit union here in town, one with the state employment division, one with the bank that issued the debit card and one with a credit card company incorporated in Delaware - without so much as getting up from my chair. In the middle of the night. Coming off a holiday weekend, ferchrissakes.

When I was a kid (thirty years ago...), people had to plan ahead to take enough cash out of the bank for weekends.

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm so used to that now that I catch myself getting annoyed or frustrated when I *can't* deal with things like that at 4AM on a Sunday. What do you mean 'regular business hours'? Then I realize how silly I'm being. :-)

[caluche.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering if the computerized and internetized civilization was a contributing factor to the breaking of the normal sleep during the night, awake during the day cycle that mankind has had for the past 200,000 years. Lightbulbs and electricity took away one need to be awake primarily during the daytime, and computers and the internet are effectively taking away the other need - to be awake when the majority of service people are awake and working.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Several years ago I was in Chicago for my performance review and my boss was taking me out to dinner. As my request we were going to an Ethopian place, where neither of us had ever been, having found it on the internet. We got there to discover that the net had lied to us and it was out of business. Remembering that there was another place nearby I called my wife in Connecticut on my cell so she could check the internet and give us the address of the other place. That was my big "I'm living in the future" moment.

Now, several years on, that story is well behind the tech curve because I should have been able to sue my phone to do that myself without bothering my wife.

[miladycarol.livejournal.com]

You've inspired a post. Yay!

[jengagne.livejournal.com]

I have a Google Docs spreadsheet I use to balance my "check" book (not that I use checks anymore) so I can time all my electronic bill payments and project my bank balance up to a year into the future. If my salary changes, it's just another variable in the spreadsheet.

Whee future! But where are my flying cars?!