Rick Raw: Paperwork Avalanche Choking the Life out of American Business

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

When the terrorists’ jumbo jets crashed into the Twin Towers, causing unimaginable death and destruction, an explosion of paper was released into the atmosphere. The countless files and reams of other printed material from the destroyed offices floated down like snow. The brazen attack on our nation resulted in the death of thousands of people when the Twin Towers collapsed, which was shocking and traumatic.

Like all Americans that morning, I was horrified by the scope of this tragic event. I was stunned by the surreal scene. Strangely, in my state of shock, I was fascinated by all the paper raining down. It substantiated my long held belief that American business is being buried in an avalanche of paperwork–bogged down by bureaucratic paper pushing that, in this computer age, could be greatly streamlined or eliminated. The planes had ruptured the epicenter of the paperwork temples.

Ten years ago, Bill Gates was advocating his concept of the "paperless office." In retrospect, he must have been dreaming. If fact, in today’s computerized world, ironically, the flow of paper has increased exponentially. Every time you make a deal, buy a car, apply for a loan, hire an attorney, or go to the hospital, you set off a stream of endless documents–enough to choke a herd of horses.

Attorneys’ offices are nothing but paperwork mills. They have special software for divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, et al. Inside any lawyer’s office, a gaggle of assistants enter data into the software that spits out volumes of paperwork. Walk into any lawyer’s office, and you’ll see stacks of documents everywhere. Criminal attorneys create so much paperwork, they need hand carts to carry the boxes of documents into the courtroom. It’s crazy.

Some progressive hospitals have managed to computerize their filing systems, making patients’ medical histories available on-line, and more importantly, giving doctors hand held tablet computers with patient information and access to on-line medical libraries. It’s gradually catching on when doctors realize that they no longer have to spend long hours doing paperwork instead of practicing medicine.

Our Government Printing Office (GPO) is the most egregious waster of paper in the world. Inside huge buildings scattered around Washington, D.C., giant automated presses crank out millions of dollars worth of printed gobbledegook at taxpayers expense. The IRS tax code book is 1,900 pages long and the GPO prints thousands of copies. The thing is, no one reads or understands it. The evil IRS empire prints millions of tax forms and other falderal that no one understands either. Millions of trees have to be chopped down to feed the hungry GPO beast. If terrorists blew up Washington, the paper snow storm that would ensue would form a white curtain over the remnants of the city.

My point is: Computers were supposed to make our life easier. Ah, but we haven’t utilized computers to their fullest extent to relieve this burden of paperwork by storing it in secure offsite computer storage facilities. I use a company called Carbonite to store my files offsite. If my computer hard drives crash, or my apartment burns down, all my files are secure and I can access them anywhere from any computer. Paranoia about computer storage is rampant. Old school professionals still insist on hard copy backup in case their computerized storage systems are wiped out.

Now, however, these facilities have their own failsafe backups on indestructible drives and are more secure than warehouses full of stored paper documents, that can burn down. Imagine the time wasted in offices across the land looking for documents in filing cabinets or warehouses when it could all be stored on offsite computers and called up when needed.

We should step back and stop printing so much wasted paper that jams up the free flow of information. Take the big step and store all your files on computerized networks. Adopt Bill Gates’ idea of the paperless office as the new goal for American business.