Snail Mail

[BeckyA]

I had to actually type a letter out today.  It was the first "letter" I have typed in a very long time.  I was just wondering if it was our company/my boss or is that normal?  I am tending to think it is job specific and others must still type and send snail mail all the time.  I figured I would ask here to appease my sense of curiosity!  With email, voice mail, memo's, inter-office routing slips, how often do you actually send out a formal letter with a stamp!  (We do send out tons of mail, but those are invoices, bills, collections, not "letter" type mail).

[SandiG]

I  send out formal letters a few times a year.  It used to be much more but email has taken over.  I think email is easier to organize, there can be a copy on the system and you dont have to keep a hard copy that can get lost, you can just do a search, easy to forward and share... I like email much better myself.

[gee4]

It depends on the content of the letter and whether it needs to have an actual signature as opposed to an electronic one.

Not everything is accepted via email from a legal point of view.

[msmarieh]

I do occasionally send them out but it's a very rare occurrence. We hardly ever get mail in either (woo hoo).

[JessW]

I would say about a minimum of 20 formal letters per day sent by snail mail, although they are also sent by fax, scanned and emailed and/or by DX (document xchange used in the legal world in UK for those who have not heard of it!).

That is company wide, and is the same for those we deal with!

 

[geminigirl]

I'd guess to about 20 or so letters a month on average.  My current boss is a great one for email but it does depend so much on the person.  Boss before last was a great letter writer - probably a 100 or so a month.  But as times are changing, more and more goes via email.  As Gee said, if it needs a hard copy, original signature, letter is the only way, even using pdf wouldn't be acceptable.

[Katie G]

We do send quite a bit of snail mail with stamps, but they are usually mail merges for things like invitations to events or appeals.  We deal with a number of older alumni and many, while internet savvy, just prefer an actual letter -- particularly with thank you notes and after-visit correspondence.  It's what they grew up with.

We also have many documents that need an actual physical signature - but they get sent by UPS or FedEx so they can be tracked.

[Katie G]

Meant to add that, now that I'm in my 40s and have been wearing corrective lenses since I was a child, I'm starting to find it physically tiresome to read large amounts of text from a screen.  There are times I'd just REALLY prefer paper.

[geminigirl]

Meant to add that, now that I'm in my 40s and have been wearing corrective lenses since I was a child, I'm starting to find it physically tiresome to read large amounts of text from a screen.  There are times I'd just REALLY prefer paper.

I think I agree with you - but at least you can make the text larger or smaller on a screen!  Too often recently in dim restaurants, I've been struggling to read the menu and bringing it closer to or further away from the eyes helps not one jot!