Tag Time

Close Enough

Michael Leave a comment

A few days ago I was walking through the parking lot to a medical office building.  Heading in my direction at a pretty good pace was a young man who I figured was on his way to an appointment. It’s pretty clever the way I figure out things like that. As he got closer he asked if I knew what time it was.  I checked my watch and told him “a quarter after 10.” To that he stopped and stared at me. I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard me so I repeated “a quarter after 10.” When he still hadn’t acknowledged me I said what was going to be for my last time, “ten-fifteen.”  His eyes unglazed, he thanked me, and resumed his way to the building, now a little more leisurely since he probably had more time than he thought he had.

I hadn’t given it much thought until I got to my own car, started it, glanced at the dashboard clock, saw that it read “10:17” and calculated in my head, “a quarter after, take a half hour to get home, be there around a quarter till.”  Actually, I live only twenty minutes from that building so to be precise (or accurate, I know there’s a difference but I’ve never been sure what it is) I would arrive home at 10:37, eight full minutes shy of a quarter to eleven. But I figured that’s close enough.

I’m not sure when we all decided to become as accurate (or precise) (compulsive?) about time.  Was it a generation ago when digital clocks were all you could find on somebody’s wrist?  Or is it a more recent phenomenon brought on by most people using phones for watches leaving wrists unadorned? And does it matter that much anyway? Every time I’m in an airport I smile at the optimism of the person timing flights. Somehow they know that the plane that took off over 2,000 miles away and made 2 other stops will get here at exactly 5:36.

And it’s not just a timing issue.  Weather people have gotten into the act also.  Only 10 years ago the forecast would have been that today will be in the mid-70s. Now it’s a specific number at a specific time. You’re most likely to hear, “At 7:00am it will be 67 degrees, noon 72, at 4 we’re looking at 76, and 71 degrees at 8 this evening” in the morning weather report.

Even the stock market was more cavalier about its numbers once upon a time. Used to be stocks were reported and sold in eighths of a dollar as in “International Widget is up 3/8.” Of course, an eighth is 12½ cents and there haven’t been half-cents since the late 1800s.  But that’s ok, nobody ever buys just one share of stock anyway.  Today what with all the computer trading, stock prices are very specific (precise?) and they don’t use real money anymore.  The broker just pulls it out of an account you set up for him.  Or her.  They could be pricing things down to the one-hundredth of a penny and it all magically gets rounded up to an even dollar amount.

When did we become such sticklers for accuracy (specificity) (precision)?  You’d think people would understand when I say “a quarter after” is close enough. They certainly didn’t when I color-coded my closet.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Day After Day

Michael Leave a comment

Who knows how it happened but recently He of We’s e-mail box has been under a new assault of junk.  It’s not even good junk.  It’s mundane buy this, buy that, enroll in this class, give to this cause, apply for this job, have you thought about a cemetery plot lately?  Fortunately, hidden at the bottom, in the world’s smallest font, usually in the world’s least contrasting color to the background (ivory on white should be illegal) is the “unsubscribe link.”

We suppose most of us would prefer not to be regimented by time, day or year but unfortunately most of us are.  Work schedules, meetings and appointments vie for our attention along with their and other imposed deadlines.  It is the deadline or action time that confuses us most.  Sometimes the measuring of time makes sense as we described in “Apology Accepted” (April 1, 2013).  Other times those times make no sense and we said so in “Past Their Prime” (October 13, 2014).  But now we found a new one that is so quite arbitrary it also should be illegal.  Or at least make somebody feel bad.

Let’s take a little detour to the early days of the home computer.  We’re not sure how many of you might have been around for those challenges but challenges they were.  Everything was written in DOS and written in some weird reverse logic notation where yes meant no and no meant uh oh.  Deleting entire files was a daily occurrence.  Deleting files, erasing directories, reformatting entire disks and drives.  There was no stopping the carnage!

So now, let’s come back to the present and that “unsubscribe link.”  You really don’t want any more e-mails from that sender so you click on it.  At least twice.  Eventually it opens a web page.  There you click on another “unsubscribe link” sometimes having to re-confirm your e-mail address.  At least twice.  Then you click on “Yes” when asked if you are sure you want to do this.  Again, at least twice.  And then you get a message.  “We’re sorry to see you go.  Please allow 21 days for your e-mail address to be removed from our files.”

Twenty-one days?  What are they doing for 3 full weeks?  We know from history that you can delete a record in record time.  In 21 days they can remove all records of all e-mail addresses ever used to send anything to anybody.  From the beginning of computer time.  To be fair, some sites can actually get the job done in ten days.  Usually these are the same sites that will gladly sell you just about anything and guarantee next day delivery.  But it takes a week and a half to delete an e-mail from a list.  Yeah, right.  Let’s all stand and applaud their efficiency.

Twenty one days.  Talk about arbitrary.  Next thing you know, banks will be calling anything that happens after 3pm tomorrow.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.