Last time I had work done, I put a typed list in with the night deposit envelope and also the same list taped to the steering wheel along with my contact info. Worked fine.
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You’re lucky. We don’t have any independent pharmacies near us. Closest one I know of is in Boston.
Well, at least now Gen Z is the butt of all the “kids these days” jokes instead of us millennials (and I read cursive and drive stick).
My wife transcribes Civil War letters and documents for a private collector, so she’s gotten quite adept at reading some really archaic handwriting. Ironically, the best written letters were often from the soldiers who were illiterate (which, it turns out, was many of them), as they usually dictated their letters to a nurse or secretary.
I recall learning cursive back in 2nd grade (that would be the Fall of 1993 in my case), and after a couple months, all of our assignments had to be written in cursive. Sometime around junior year of high school, a friend asked why I wrote everything in cursive, and I said I was told we had to. Apparently I didn’t realize it was only until the end of that school year…
I haven’t needed cursive since I started working in the automotive industry though. Everything now is electronic or, at least, printed.
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Your wife is performing a great service. Professor Gallagher often refers to the civil was letters written to explain what was actually in the minds of the populace at the time.
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Thanks for the tip; we’re actually not familiar with Professor Gallagher, but we might have to sign up for an Audible trial now to hear his lectures.
Try YouTube first… there are a whole lot of his lectures there… Search “Professor Gary Gallagher”
Here are two freebies, and there are lots more…
Most are almost two-hours long…
If you use 4K Video Downloader, you can save them to your phone, tablet, or laptop for later listening when you do not have WiFi…
Good listening…
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He has a lot of you tube presentations alone and with others. U of Virginia, Gary Gallagher. Written or edited a number of books, etc. his Darden leadership mba course on Gettysburg is pretty good but four sessions over an hour each.
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She’s doing this manually? There’s software and even phone apps that can do this pretty accurately. Even with very bad penmanship.
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Yeah, none of the OCR software she’s tried came anywhere close to accurate. They ended up being more work for her to fix than to just do the whole thing manually.
I’ve never used it, but I have seen the results. I guess the penmanship must be pretty good for it to work properly.
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Could be, plus a lot of the documents she gets are torn or water damaged.
I was a Computer Programmer, Systems Administrator, Network Manager, and a whole bunch more while I served in the Air Force for over 30-years.
I helped to setup numerous offices and functions in the Air force that needed to digitize all manner of printed material, Manuals, Regulations, Instructions, etc… All high quality printed products, many published by the Government Printing Office.
We used high quality Optical Character Readers (OCR). This software run on computers using Optical Scanners with a lot more resolution that you will find on any but the highest priced printers still had problems with distinguishing a lower case “i” for a lower case “l” or the number “1”, “o” for “b” or “d”, a “q” for a “g”, and forget what the OCR thinks of the special characters “[ { ] } \ | - = etc…”
Remember, these scanners are reading high quality printed material, not hand written letters on paper of questionable quality to begin with.
Not only that but the words and writing styles we use today is so different from the way people spoke and wrote in the past…
Other difficulties that an OCR has is due to bad handwriting or poor writing equipment (You know, feather quills…) along with blobs of ink obscuring letters and writing that’s so faded it’s almost illegible.
And spelling can be particularly difficult, as spellings weren’t standardized until compulsory education began around 1870, long after the civil war… Surnames and place names in particular can have a wide variety of spellings, even on the same page.
Then you have to consider the different styles of handwriting. Although may be all in English, they can look quite different from our modern script.
I am so impressed with the work your wife does. Not only does she have to have a comprehensive knowledge of history to be able to decipher the spellings, the meanings, and the context of expressions, she must have the patience of Jobe.
Below is a full size copy of the Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in Abraham Lincoln’s own hand. This copy of the address is known as the Everett Copy because Lincoln prepared it for Edward Everett, who also spoke on the day Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
This copy was prepared after Lincoln returned to Washington and carefully prepared it for Mr. Everett and it was carefully preserved as a cherished memento and is not maintained but The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
In 7th grade, my Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Josephine Sano, who never needed to embarrass a student for not knowing the answer, had us memorize the entire address, not just the first passage…
It is saved in four parts so you can click on it to enlarge it so it is easier to read…
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Interesting. I don’t know if I’m reading it though or if I just know what it says. I used to read golden books to my grandmother when I was three or four but suspect I wasn’t really reading but had just memorized them. Tough job for human or computer.
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Aside from all the replies, neighbor did not take his own personal cell phone because he was flying, can not imagine anyone doing that.
Time to put a stake through this thread.
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Well, you are not the only one who called my neighbor’s phone issue to task and I told him he blew it when he did not leave them his companies’ cell phone number or he should have brought both…
He knows he should have left that phone’s number but as for bringing both phones; why would anyone want to carry two cell phones, two chargers, along with the luggage which included his suit case, his brief case, his laptop (17-incher–does not fit in brief case…), then have to do this several times passing through TSA, who give him extra scrutiny, because he is not a native born American.
So, if you carry two cell phones, and other electronic devices, and the rest of your travel luggage and the TSA waves you through with a "wink and a nod, " then you are very lucky…
Remember: A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse
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I certainly do not want to have multiple phones. Fortunately, work has found a solution to that problem. My work phone is highly integrated with the systems at work. I can view/work with anything on my phone that I can with my office computer/laptop. Much of my work is commerce controlled at a minimum with a significant portion being ITAR and other highly government controlled/restricted access. However, the phone is encrypted and PIN locked also requiring facial recognition or finger print to unlock. Then the phone is segregated into two distinct working areas- one business, one personal and the two shall never meet 
For example, to share a photo I take with the phone, I have to email/text it. It’s slightly cumbersome to work with but much better than having two devices. Maybe your friend could convince his company to look into something similar…
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Nor do I. I used to feel sorry for the Deputy AG for whom I worked. In addition to her personal cell phone, she had to carry one for the Law Department.
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Appears by trying to put a stake (not steak) in it, we have only opened up a whole new area for discussion. For those of us that have progressed from the Stone Age of no phones through multiple phones and devices to a single dick Tracy device, we understand why he would leave one at home. Sometime after the football sized phone, I just had a beeper. Then had to find a pay phone to call. Then just a company phone only that could not be used for any personal use unless on travel status. No problem since I was on travel status 90% of the time. Then finally just got my own and told them to stick their company phone. Now I know someone who Carrie’s a secret burner phone for some reason. But yeah, those without tool belts like to travel lighter.
It was the original topic: Customer left a vehicle but no phone number to reach him, vehicle was put aside waiting for customer to contact the service writer. Blame the kids for not being able to read his handwriting.
A night drop could be written in Spanish or Chinese, we have bilingual employees, but with no phone number they will likely be placed last in line for service.
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