Whew.

Had to get a mail-out done. For those of you youngsters out there, a "mail-out" is where you actually print a copy of what you wrote on your computer, take it to the copier, run 70 copies of it, then carefully fold each one into three roughly equal portions and put each little bundle into an "envelope". (An envelope is a cleverly folded piece of paper which serves a sort of protective pouch into which to place the copies of the printout.)

Each of these envelopes was previously fed through the laser printer and printed with the name and "street address" of the intended recipient. The name has to that of an actual person, too! And the address, although it has numbers in it like an URL, is meant to be the location of a building. After all of these sheaves of paper are carefully placed into addressed envelopes, they are connected together with thin latex loops called "rubber bands", and placed into a handy and convenient bin in the outer office, where they are whisked away by other persons to be given to the United States Postal Service.

All of this work used to be done by people called "secretaries", which is what we now call administrative assistants .

As you notice, I said they used to do this work--nowadays, such repetitive and simple tasks are considered beneath the high aspirations of some, and it falls to others who have no illusions of importance to accomplish the tasks. Those of us who wind up doing the work don't really mind so much, in that it negates having to deal with certain people who, by virtue of the Byzantine employment regulations we all work under, are incapable of doing neither any substantive labor nor of being fired. Further, certain of these people require large doses of Lithium to maintain an even temperment. Which is important, because to hear such a person when their medicine level reaches bottom screech and holler and whoop and howl is unnerving. I imagine it must be even more so for telephone callers.

Would that I were exaggerating.

In any event, it is done, and now I am off to go meet My Friend Jeff for an enjoyable round of lunch and car magazine swapping. Details to follow.

(Speaking of cars, I will say that this 2Fast2Furious craze has become epidemic--yesterday on the way home, I saw a plain old dark green Kia Spectra four door sedan with a coffee can muffler hanging out the back. End of the world is nigh, I tell ya.)

But, let's have lunch first. See you in a bit.
posted by Terry at 11:17:00 AM