Forms, forms and more forms!

At the moment I seem to be inundated with forms to complete and send off. There are insurance forms for my youngest son’s injured shoulder, forms to apply for Medicare cards for my two youngest sons so they can go to the doctor without me, forms to apply for a casual tutoring job I’m interested in and a form to complete if I want to enter a local competition. Oh and an electronic form I have to help my son complete so he can put in his preferences for any tertiary courses he might want to do next year.


I never thought life would be this complicated! Too many people want too much information from me! No wonder many of today’s youth refuse to take on responsibility, preferring to simply enjoy life. I would do the same if I had known back in my younger days what I know now.

People from my parents’ generation complain the youth of today are always on the go and never take time to relax. Well, I bet they are far too busy filling out forms to take the time to relax.

Gathering information seems to be a highlight of businesses and organisations these days. Information about clients and, even more importantly, potential clients is extremely valuable. Once they have your details businesses and organisations can market their products to you more efficiently, or produce products that better meet your needs, or predict which products and services you are most likely to need.

Sometimes requiring forms to be completed can be a stalling technique and one that I use myself at work. It is easier to ask prospective clients to fill in a form and submit it than it is to deal with them directly at the time they contact you.

What I can’t understand is why, in today’s technological age, I’m still required to fill in paper forms and submit them by post? Why can’t I just log on to the relevant website, type in my details and hit “send”? This, by the way, is exactly what happens at my work if I ask potential clients to fill in forms. What’s with the truckloads of trees cut down in order to allow us to fill in paper forms?

Take, for example, Medicare. In order to get their own cards you would think it would be easy enough for my sons to go to a Medicare office, present photo ID and wait while the customer service officer typed a few details into the computer. But no, first they have to fill in a paper form and then they go to a Medicare office with the form and their photo ID and wait while the customer service officer types their details into the computer. Go figure.

But I must go now. I still have those forms to complete…