4 ms·

I’m a lawyer in a government agency and never once in my 20-year career have I sent or received a fax. The only faxes that come out of the machine are junk faxe

I’m a lawyer in a government agency and never once in my 20-year career have I sent or received a fax. The only faxes that come out of the machine are junk faxes. People have been emailing scanned PDFs for at least 15 of those 20 years.

Izkata 6y ago
On the flipside, at least as recently as last year they were using faxes to apply for unemployment in New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/nyregion/coronavirus-ny-unemployment-benefits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/nyregion/coronavirus-ny-u...
cptskippy 6y ago
Weird, maybe it's just real estate and medical then but several times we've been unable to get around it. I initially wrote a fax App using the Twilio API to send some medical forms that could only be faxed. Since then I've had to use it for the sale of two homes, and this past summer it was augmented to receive faxes for closing on a home. My partner ask me for the number just last week to request some medical records from out of state.
asdff 6y ago
Clearly you haven't had to change your benefits in your 20 year career. I briefly worked for the state 5 years ago, and had to fax them my social security number to elect for benefits. No receipt at the other end other than benefits being successfully pulled the next paycheck. Fax works its way in to some roles where it is entrenched, namely HR.
- massysett 6y ago
  Clearly I have changed my benefits many times in my 20-year career. Most of the systems to do this in my government are Web-based. For those that aren’t, I email a PDF form to the appropriate personnel.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Weird how different these systems are. Anything involving something like a social security number could not be emailed. HR would be explicit telling you not to reply back with the filled PDFs via email.
    - cptskippy 6y ago
      And yet it's ok to email PDFs containing all the bank verification info to transfer your retirement account. Ask me how I know... We have software installed in our email gateway that detects key words like SSN or 16 digit numbers that look like credit cards and blocks them from being sent.
mgerullis 6y ago
Here in Germany, lawyers offices and public offices still rely quite heavily on them.

Izkata 6y ago

On the flipside, at least as recently as last year they were using faxes to apply for unemployment in New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/nyregion/coronavirus-ny-unemployment-benefits.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/nyregion/coronavirus-ny-u...

cptskippy 6y ago

Weird, maybe it's just real estate and medical then but several times we've been unable to get around it. I initially wrote a fax App using the Twilio API to send some medical forms that could only be faxed. Since then I've had to use it for the sale of two homes, and this past summer it was augmented to receive faxes for closing on a home. My partner ask me for the number just last week to request some medical records from out of state.

asdff 6y ago

Clearly you haven't had to change your benefits in your 20 year career. I briefly worked for the state 5 years ago, and had to fax them my social security number to elect for benefits. No receipt at the other end other than benefits being successfully pulled the next paycheck. Fax works its way in to some roles where it is entrenched, namely HR.

massysett 6y ago
Clearly I have changed my benefits many times in my 20-year career. Most of the systems to do this in my government are Web-based. For those that aren’t, I email a PDF form to the appropriate personnel.
- asdff 6y ago
  Weird how different these systems are. Anything involving something like a social security number could not be emailed. HR would be explicit telling you not to reply back with the filled PDFs via email.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    And yet it's ok to email PDFs containing all the bank verification info to transfer your retirement account. Ask me how I know... We have software installed in our email gateway that detects key words like SSN or 16 digit numbers that look like credit cards and blocks them from being sent.

mgerullis 6y ago

Here in Germany, lawyers offices and public offices still rely quite heavily on them.