backhertz wrote:I spoke to Customer Service on Friday with Linda & told her I miss the catalogs. My last catalog is from Father's Day in 2008. She told me that was the last catalog printed and the web site is the only source they use.
I imagine it is all about cost and that to permit the company to remain in operation, this is the best we will get. One nice thing is you (we) can sign up for email specials which is something that we didn't have back then so there are more chances for savings throughout the year which was only once or twice a year when we had paper catalogs.
But I myself prefer a paper catalog and someone suggested simply printing out the .pdf file and you'll have a paper catalog. That is something which I'm not particularly a fan of, but it's better than nuttin.
I used to work with large manuals of schematics. The younger engineers wanted everything on "soft" copy and I was completely against that as I was old school and like the old road maps that gas stations used to hand out for free (remember dem daze?) I needed paper to go from one page to another or else I might go from one page to another on the computer and with 50 inputs or more on the left it would be easy to go to the wrong line and end up at the wrong transistor or IC chip which would make me lose what hair I had left...
But everyone loves the new Kindles and stuff like that. Soon, all forests will regrow because paper will no longer be used for printing on or even used for building anything as the world is wanting to recycle everything. I remember throwing out a manual typewriter when directed by my boss & thinking to myself, I hope we never have a long power outage or experience an EMP-electromagnetic pulse that will destroy any solid state device. Se la vie...
FWIW, I can find something in a paper catalog many times faster than playing with a keyboard, mouse, and screen. Open to marked index page, quickly glance down to item you are looking for, determine the page, and flip to it. Nothing needed but nimble fingers, the paper catalog, and decent eyesight!
Only wait states are those that are
self created!
Annnnd you can 'see' two pages at a time of readable size.
I shudder to think how much 'productive' time is lost waiting for a DA machine to finally get around to display what was 'requested'.
Annnd you only need the electric company for illumination.
As far as being 'updated', one only has to notice how well the web site is kept 'current'. I be referring to the 'Accessory and Service Parts Catalogs'.
And
I be a rabid fan of computerization, but not much so of how it as been implemented in many instances. It should be saving the 'user's' time, not
hogging it!