Comment by cameronh90

Comment by cameronh90 14 hours ago

The author in the UK so it's pretty much a given that they're exaggerating for comedic effect, but... living in the UK myself, I have only sent maybe about 5 letters in my life, all to the government bureaucracy, and none more recently than a decade ago. And I'm a millennial, albeit on the younger side (so I tell myself).

I don't have any pens, paper or a printer in my house, so I'd probably go to my workplace if I needed to send a letter nowadays. I do occasionally send a parcel though, which involves printing off a shipping label, so the process isn't completely alien.

SpaceNoodled 11 hours ago

It's bizarre to hear about people not even having a single pen, like the author. What's the last time you ever used one? What is your daily life like?

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Macha 6 hours ago

I went for 10 years not using a pen at home. That streak would be even longer, except for about a year I took up journalling as a hobby.
I'm not sure exactly what you think people must be handwriting:
- Notes? I use Obsidian for work notes, Google Keep for stuff like shopping lists
- Signatures? Delivery receipt signatures are done with a finger on a touch screen, stuff like employment contracts and finance paperwork have basically all moved to e-signatures. I genuinely think the last thing I signed with a pen might have been my mortgage, and that one I had to go to solicitor's office anyway as it had to be officially witnessed.
- Paper forms? Print, sign and scan was occasionally requested until a few years ago, but I did it in the office because I also didn't own a printer at that time. Even "important government forms" are done online now.

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cameronh90 7 hours ago

I think the last the last time I used a writing implement was actually about two months ago, and it was a sharpie that I had to go to the corner shop to buy. I needed to take a verification picture of myself holding the date for an online pharmacy.
I do have an iPad with an Apple Pencil, but even that I use quite rarely - though I at least know where it is. If I'm annotating a PDF, that would be my tool of choice.
Aside from that, I'm not sure that my daily life is really that unrecognisable from anyone else's. Just that instead of writing stuff on paper, I either type it or tap it on my phone. For maths, I'm just quite quick at TeX input.

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pbhjpbhj 13 hours ago

We don't have a printer at home (UK), sending parcels is the only time we'd need it but our small local post office prints labels (eg for Amazon returns, or parcel companies).

I did print a page at work recently, the second one since I started my job 5 years ago.

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cameronh90 11 hours ago

Most of the time I have to send parcels now, I use those drop off lockers where you just put it in the right cubbyhole and - I guess - they label it when they pick it up. Otherwise, most couriers will do label on pickup, or the return label is included with the delivery in the first place. Very occasionally there's no other option but to find some way of printing it myself.
I did have a small inkjet printer at one point, but the ink kept drying up, so in the end it was costing me £10 and a trip to Tesco every time I needed to print something. Thought about getting a laser, but it's quite a lot of space to waste on something I use so rarely. I might get one of those little thermal printers that are small enough to keep in a drawer.

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