Great First Impressions

We have a certain group of people, I call them the typers. They type and oftentimes use the computers that don't have internet access. I imagine they are writing observations, stories about their lives, poetry or a novel. Sometimes I'm invited to look and then the veil of sanity can drop before my eyes. My first time was when a customer asked me for help in printing his letter. Unfortunately he had used the notepad program on the computer, which is not meant to be used to write a letter or a screed in his case. He showed me his print out of his letter and it was a jumble of formatting, paragraphs running along the page and then suddenly stopped and large white spaces appear. First impressions always count and he was afraid that his letter was not going to work once he mailed it.

I tried not to read it since it was his private work, but he had seemed rational and clean, cleanliness in my opinion was an important factor in my opinion of rationality. But certain words popped out, missing money, plots against him, television and how this particular political person was tampering with his mind ( that in itself in an election year is not so far off base).

We manuevered around and I helped eliminate a lot of the white space and moved the words closer together. Not a great letter in a first impression sort of way but it would do.  We spoke briefly about Microsoft Word and how this would work for him and launch him into an unfettered letter campaign with great first impressions. I saw him a few more times and he had moved to the typing computers and was now making use of MS Word. I didn't have to read them anymore and he was printing away (at 15c per page).