Don't ignore the technology!
Technology is making the word more efficient. At some point, communicating with a person far away, required writing down the message with ink in a piece of dead tree and have someone or some company physically move that to the other location. Now we fire an email and it’ there in seconds.
I’m actually not sure if in that case we are more efficient (global communication infrastructure vs global transportation infrastructure and gas for the trucks and planes), we are definitely faster.
Recently my oven broke. The door is not stoping when it should and goes almost all the way to the floor when you open it. I’ve notified the management company and wanting to make the process more efficient I’ve recorded a video of the issue and sent it to them. Ah, technology, love it!
Today the repair main arrived (at 7:30hs, very Swiss). He open the door and… “Ah! It’s broken, I’ll come back next week with the spare parts.”
Honestly I wasn’t surprised, but we already have the technology to make this whole thing more efficient, I did my part and I was ignored. I bet the apartment management company never sent the guy the video.
My guess is we will slowly learn to use technology in this situation. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_33/b4191023607461.htm Kenmore has designed washing machines to send sounds over the phone that the company can decode to find out what is wrong and offer a fix over the phone or send the repair person with the right parts and tools.