Why Type When You Can...Handwrite, Scan, and Email? The Wild Ways We Avoid the Easy Way
There are many ways to take the scenic route in life—some people opt for the winding backroad instead of the highway, others insist on making bread from scratch instead of buying it at the store. But nothing quite rivals the lengths one office manager went to in order to avoid a few keystrokes. Welcome to the world of tech support, where the easiest solution is sometimes just a suggestion, not a commandment.
Today’s tale, straight from Reddit’s r/TalesFromTechSupport, will have you shaking your head, laughing, and maybe, just maybe, quietly wondering if you’ve ever been guilty of the same thing.
The Case of the Handwritten Vehicle Assignments
Let’s set the scene: Every day, an office manager finalizes the shift schedule and is supposed to export it to Excel. This spreadsheet, shared with the Dispatch team, is critical for tracking which worker drove which company vehicle—a necessary detail for when, say, a speed camera ticket arrives and everyone swears they were nowhere near that street.
There’s one catch: the exported Excel sheet is password-protected to prevent tampering. The only way to get the right vehicle info in the right spot is to input it into the scheduling software before export. At least, that’s what everyone thought.
But when a supervisor needed to check which car was used on a particular day, every vehicle field was mysteriously blank. Had the system failed? Was it a database bug? The tech support sleuths dug into folder snapshots and uncovered something odd: this location’s file was a PDF, not the expected Excel sheet. Opening it revealed a shocking sight to anyone who’s ever wrangled a digital workflow—handwritten vehicle numbers, scribbled on printouts, then scanned and uploaded back to the team.
The office manager, when asked about this laborious process, simply shrugged: “I can just write faster than I can type.”
The Keyboard Is Lava: A Universal Workplace Phenomenon
Before you judge, take a moment to reflect on your own creative workarounds. As the Reddit community pointed out, this isn’t an isolated incident—it’s an epidemic. The most upvoted response, from u/henke37, joked that it was “remedial training time! This time typewriter training.” But, as u/gCKOgQpAk4hz poignantly noted, typing is no longer a given skill: “Current post high school generation doesn't have computer typing skills. They have mobile computing platform tapping skills.”
It’s not just a generational thing, either. Commenters recounted tales of coworkers—young and old—using Caps Lock for every capital letter or painstakingly hunting and pecking at keys as if the QWERTY layout changed every morning. u/dutchah chimed in with the horror of watching both a young colleague and his manager two-finger typing, activating caps lock for every uppercase letter “like some kind of ritual.”
If you’ve ever watched someone try to work a modern printer or wrestle with modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Cmd), you’ll understand the universal pain.
Workarounds: More Work, Less Efficiency
The irony of the office manager’s “shortcut” wasn’t lost on Redditors. OP u/Geno0wl clarified that the manager oversaw 38 people, with about 2/3 in the field, and that the software included a handy “pull previous” button to automatically assign vehicles for most users. About 70% of drivers used the same vehicle every day. So, with a little up-front typing and the help of built-in features, the entire process could be streamlined.
Instead, our protagonist chose to print multi-page schedules, handwrite each vehicle assignment, scan it back in, and upload a PDF. As u/Connect-Preference pointed out, “She definitely needs remedial training on how to use that. Also on the consequences of her ‘clever’ workaround.”
It’s not just inefficient—it’s risky. Handwritten assignments are prone to errors, illegibility, and make searching or auditing a nightmare. One commenter, u/Lellela, recalled the time their produce manager would receive numbers via email, print them, fax them, and then email the recipient to check their fax. Sometimes, the most complicated solutions are a symptom of not knowing the easier way.
Training, Tolerance, and the Human Factor
Why do people do this? Sometimes, it’s a lack of training or confidence. u/androshalforc1 offered empathy, noting that maybe the computer was inconveniently located or the user found typing genuinely slow due to lack of practice. Others, like u/alf666, took a harder line: “At that point it should be justifiable to fire someone for not having the required skills to perform their job duties.”
But maybe, as u/ElfjeTinkerBell suggested, the answer is a little workplace solidarity: “It sometimes helps to agree with them and complain about someone who designed a keyboard that is completely illogical and we're stuck with it.” Sometimes, a little empathy (and maybe a typing class) can go a long way.
Of course, some workarounds are just plain baffling. u/ItsGotToMakeSense shared a story of a helpdesk tech who faked calls by looping the phone menu, showing that sometimes, avoiding work takes more effort than just doing it.
Lessons Learned (and Laughed At)
So what’s the takeaway? Technology moves fast, but human habits are stubborn. Whether it’s printing and scanning to avoid typing, using Caps Lock like a Morse code key, or faxing in the age of email, every workplace has its own creative “solutions.” Sometimes, a little training or a patient nudge can rescue a process from the Rube Goldberg Hall of Fame.
Next time you’re tempted to invent a workaround, remember this story—and that Reddit is always watching, ready to laugh (and sometimes empathize) at our most roundabout routes to “getting things done.”
Have your own story of a clever (or not-so-clever) office hack? Share it in the comments below! And if you’re still using a fax machine…we’re here for you.
Original Reddit Post: End user doing a lot more work to avoid a little bit of work