My friends like to joke that they’re bitter because it’s the 21st century and we don’t have our jetpacks. The 21st century is damn different from how it was portrayed in the media of our childhood; The Jetsons have a lot to answer for. However, “different” doesn’t mean bad.
Although my day job can absolutely be boiled down to “button pusher”.
I made a recent long distance move and have found myself living in a region where my primary bank doesn’t have much of a presence. This became a bit awkward on my wife’s birthday, when she received a few thoughtful gifts from relatives in the form of checks. You see, her savings are at the aforementioned primary bank. Driving to the closest full service ATM would’ve taken a huge chunk of time and cost a birthday check’s worth of gas.
When your GPS says to turn left at the dead cow, you know you’re in the boonies.
In the past, I could’ve deposited the check at my other bank — which has a branch on every damn corner in my new city — and then transferred it to the other bank, which would have taken days. Now though? I can deposit checks over my phone. Not just to one bank either. All the financial institutions that I use, bar one, have an app for at least one mobile platform that can take deposits. How cool is that, really? When I was a kid, we had rotary phones tethered to a wall. Now? I carry a phone more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon in my damn pocket, I’m connected to every other person in the world, and I can even use my magic future phone as my own personal night depository. With an NFC chip, I can use my phone as a debit card, essentially having a full service ATM on my person at all times. Not only that, but many of the smartphones that can do this are available for free under contract.
Sure, if I had a jetpack, I could rocket over to the bank, but considering it would be less fuel efficient than my car, I’d be out more than the money I was depositing. Also? I’d probably burn my legs off. That’d suck.
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