Hiking the Paper Trail

Paper is obsolete now, right? We have e-books. We have Docusign. We have online newspapers, magazines, annual reports, birthday cards, and, of course, e-mail.

OK, it's not obsolete yet. But even Luddites like me have embraced the digital age. My one holdout: I can’t quit paper books. And getting mail is still fun, even though nobody except my mom mails me anything anymore.

The older I get, the less paper I want cluttering up my life. File folders are bulky; storing them is annoying. Bills pile up on surfaces and are easier to pay online. Even our beloved books are a burden to cart around; we did a book purge during our last move and it felt oddly freeing.

Then there's the environmental impact. Hanging out at home during the pandemic has made it clearer to me than ever how many dead trees dwell in my house.

So, yesterday, after receiving my umpteenth piece of snail mail from Computershare, I took myself to their website to switch to online statements.

Some companies (naturally, since they save big bucks at the post office), make it a cinch to go paperless. Other companies, well… other companies are like Computershare.

It had been a while since I visited Computershare.com. I started the “Forgot Password” process, dutifully typing the name of the best man at my wedding and my oldest child’s birthplace. The website, which was not present at my wedding nor at my child’s birth, called me a liar. Then it locked me out and informed me that a new password was being sent to my mailing address.

Sighing, I dialed customer service. After 6 minutes of navigating recorded prompts, I reached a human and told her I wanted to go paperless. She said the only way I could do that was by logging in and making the request online. I explained that her website had grounded me from my logging-in privileges. She said she couldn’t process my request over the phone.

Then she said a survey would be mailed to me to assess my satisfaction with this phone call. I asked her how she thought I might answer that survey, seeing as how my attempts to go paperless had so far generated not one, but two paper documents being mailed to me.

She said she’d create an escalated ticket and could I please hold. I started composing the joke I was going to crack about mailing her a thank-you card.

Just as she was about to confirm the ticket number, the call dropped. I threw my hands in the air and stuffed my paper statement into the file cabinet.

Twenty minutes later, my phone beeped with Facebook Messenger notifications from a group of old friends. We’ve been hanging out on Zoom together recently to allay our collective boredom during the pandemic.

J---- 
Hello All, I've been enjoying sending snail mail out into the world lately. I wondered if any of you would like some. No pressure! But if you do just message your address. 

A---- 
Love snail mail! 514 G---- Ave, 60091. Thanks! 

S---- 
1124 West F------ 60626 

L---- 
That’s thoughtful J----! 10682 S----- 43065 

K---- 
I love snail mail … 4508 N. ------- 61616 

“Why not,” I replied to the group chat, and sent my address.

It seems paper and I aren’t quite finished yet after all.

What’s a couple of dead trees between friends?