Technology...

by Karen Sigler-Goldstein
Finance Director

The other day, I was helping my 4th grade daughter, Madeline, with her spelling homework. She had to use a word she didn’t know in a sentence, so we quickly went to my phone to look up the definition using Google. This made me think of my childhood when I had to look up a word, or anything for that matter, in the Encyclopedia Britannica (which I heard they have now stop printing). I started to reminisce with my children on how much technology has changed since I was Madeline (10) and my son, Nathaniel’s (8) age.

At the same time, my son was trying to get through his homework so he could watch Phineas and Ferb, a cartoon on The Disney Channel. I explained to him that when I was little, cartoons were shown one day a week-on, EARLY Saturday morning. I had to make sure I was up to watch them! I reminded Madeline how much she loves to watch “Switched at Birth” on ABC Family, but since we can never remember when it’s one (and I like to preview it), we have to use our DVR. I told her that I would have to race home to watch my favorite TV show because we didn’t have a VCR let alone a DVR! It was especially important to be ‘front and center’ during the holidays, which were the only time of year to see some of your favorites, (like “A Year Without a Santa Claus”, which was my favorite)!

Nathaniel recently wanted to read a book in the “Humphrey” series. I easily downloaded it on my Kindle for him, but couldn’t help remembering when I had to go to the library, look in the card file to find the Dewey Decimal number, and go down the aisles to look for books! I can only imagine how easy research projects will be for my children, however I spent hours at the library researching my topics using books and magazines (which often the librarian would have to retrieve from a storage room) and recording the information on note cards to use later when I hand-write or type (using a typewriter) my paper.

All reminiscing aside, I love technology, especially when it comes to my job! I can’t imagine how United Way predecessors handled being Finance Director without a computer. Now, when a donor, vendor, or other United Way calls with a question, I can quickly and easily find any information using Quickbooks or Andar, our accounting and donor software. Back in the day, United Way finance directors would have to comb through mounds of ledgers, paper etc. It sounds exhausting!

I could go on and on about the technological differences between then and now, especially when it comes to lack of car and crib safety back in the day. But I will start to sound like my parents (“When I was young I had to walk to school in the snow uphill”), so I will stop. And as for my children, I’m sure I do sound like my parents to them…. BUT their time is coming. I can hear them now telling their children… “When I was your age, my parents actually had to DRIVE a car.”