Shot in the Dark

Snail Mail

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

I turn 65 this Summer.  I went online to apply for Medicare. Can’t, must apply for Social Security first.  Okay, filled all the boxes, established a strong password, set up two-factor authentication, entered the confirmation code, received acknowledgement of the code, so are we done?

No.  They’ll send me a letter in the Snail Mail with my final activation instructions.  Should receive it in 10-15 days. Then I can finish the set up to have funds direct deposited into my bank account.

Snail Mail?  Does ANYBODY use snail mail for ANYTHING anymore? The entire process is electronic (and soon to be digital currency, as well) except for this step which looks like nothing more than a make-work payoff to the Postal Worker’s Union.  I’d gladly have offered to pay for them to ship it Fed Ex, had that been an option, but no.  Wait for the letter.  Hope for the best.  What could go wrong?  Unbelievable.

It could be worse. It could be run by MN IT.

Posted

in

,

by

Mitch Berg

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “Snail Mail”

  1. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    Heh. Whatta grouch. Joe’s gonna make a great retiree.

  2. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    I hope as more people retire, there are more complaints when things aren’t done online. I have my 88 year old father who is mostly deaf, but also somewhat challenged when doing things online. When I have to help him with things, it is far easier when things can be done online. I can be chatting with him on the phone, get the information and voila. It’s done. But, there are some things that require a phone call, or a print out, or whatever. And he lives 3 hours away. And he can’t hear most phone conversations adequately. So, helping him in those areas with billing questions, getting things set up, appointments, etc that require anything other than being online is a huge problem. And it seems that the more likely whatever I’m doing mostly involves retirees (as opposed to younger people) the more likely it requires something other than online work. So, I’ve always assumed medical scheduling, any senior service, businesses that sell services marketed to seniors, etc are ageist and think that seniors prefer not doing things. Seniors need to speak up.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.