Nothing technical, just a rant today.

Whenever there's a "paperless billing" option or similar thing, I always opt for it.  Yet, I still receive an enormous amount of documents on paper--99% of which I never use.  For instance, every other Tuesday, my work gives me an envelope with my "check" in it, except the money is directly deposited into my bank account so it's just for the pay stub.  I bring them home, they sit around unopened cluttering up the place and ultimately end up in the shredder, must of the time still unopened.  I mean, the information is available online, what do I need the paper for??  Heck, online it can be accessed anywhere, anytime and you always know exactly where to find it and requires no organization or other effort on your part.  On paper, it can be accessed in only one place and you have to be there and remember where it is or else look for it.

Here's something even worse: The medical insurance documents that are mailed to me every 6 months.  It's practically a book!  And what happens to it?  It sits around as clutter and ultimately ends up in the garbage untouched.  Why not make the policy documents available online and stop wasting money?  How many people actually sit down and go through all that stuff that they send you?

In fact, scratch using paper, why are we still using snail mail??  Bills, check stubs, notices, insurance claims, letters, cards, documents--e-mail, e-mail, e-mail!  I want it all e-mailed to me!  You know what happens to my incoming snail mail?  It piles up for probably a month before I finally take the time to go through it.  My e-mail, on the other hand, is checked multiple times daily.  In fact, Outlook is set up to automatically organize my incoming e-mail into folders, so it requires no ongoing effort on my part to stay organized.

Oh, and just a quick note about credit card offers that come in the mail.  Imagine how much they could lower interest rates if they didn't waste money sending offers every other day it seems that, despite their weak attempts to disguise them, are evident as such without opening them and immediately end up in the shredder unopened without a second thought.  (And I don't know about everyone else, but a lower interest rate (permanent, not introductory) would appeal to me much more than thinking, "Oh look!  This company actually took the time to pre-approve me for this apparently great credit card offer in an attempt to exploit my stupidity and take advantage of me by hooking me in with a '0% introductory APR' but with all these ridiculous fees and charges hidden in the fine print, not to mention their plan to increase the APR once I'm stuck."  Hollywood principle, please: Don't call us, we'll call you.)

What can I say?  I hate waste--wasted time, wasted energy, wasted time, wasted resources, wasted time...  And snail mail is not only a waste of the sender's resources, but a colossal waste of my time always sorting through it all.  Paper in general is a waste.  It's all this clutter everywhere.  It's so hard to keep organized.  But electronic documents aren't bound by the laws of physics, they can be everywhere and nowhere all at once.  You can instantly access information without physically searching for it.  You can keep all the documents you want and still have no clutter; that's right, you can have your cake and eat it too.

So to all those sending snail mail to me: The Internet, e-mail, and electronic information are not new.  They've kinda been around for a while...  Get with the program, please.  Stop sending me snail mail!