To fax or not to fax…

To fax or not to fax, that is the question.  Whether ’tis nobler…uh, that’s all I remember.  But I do remember the first time I saw a fax. It was about the same time I was memorizing Shakespeare in English class back in the 80’s.   I was helping out the office manager of my grandfather’s company as a part time job in high school.  We just got the fax machine.  It was one of those early heat transfer models.  Do you remember?  The paper was on a roll.  And stayed rolled up even when it came out.  If you left too many on there, it would be a bumbled mess on the tray and falling onto the floor. All out of order.

 

 

 

 

 

We used to staple them to our files, even though when you pulled them out of the drawer a few months later all you’d see was a grey mass of ink or barely intelligible print that had faded.  And the paper was that strange feeling gloss that [shudder] I can still feel the [shudder] through my body if my fingernail ran across it the wrong way.  It still was pretty amazing to send documents instantly over the phone line.  (OK, not instantly. I remember waiting for it to dial and that unique sound of data transferring, then waiting, waiting, staring at the faux wood paneling on the wall, waiting for it to go through, or not, or redial, but I digress.  It was instant for the 80’s) That was before email.  I heard tales in the office about a telex machine, and we still had a telex address on our letterhead at the time.  But I’ve never actually seen one.   They had made the decision to get rid of the telex and use a fax machine instead.

Which brings me to today.  I’m writing today to commemorate a new day in our office.  Today, we cancelled our fax line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had been nagging at me for a while.  Then Jeff, our Digital Marketing Director sent this pic from Twitter, and I finally had the courage to say – its going to be OK.  Let it go.  A lot changed in 2014.  We took a significant step toward digital advertising, added Content Marketing to our clients’ marketing strategies, and now, we have released the fax.  Here’s to 2015.  Happy New Year everybody!