ok boomer

Don’t Let Your Boomer Relatives Use Checks

Baby boomers are stubborn as hell, they cling to their old-school ways, like still using checks to pay their bills or making purchases.

Using paper checks is the least secure payment method. Unlike modern digital transactions that use encryption and multi-factor authentication, checks physically expose your most sensitive financial data to anyone who handles your check.

The number of people who handle a physical check before it reaches a typically passes through three or four different hands in a standard mailing scenario: postal workers, the recipient, depositor, and the bank teller.  Any of these individuals can access your financial information and empty your bank account.

Each check from Grandma Betty or Auntie Hilda reveals her name, address, bank account and routing number, signature, and sometimes phone number—valuable information for criminals.

If a boomer relative is still using checks, they need an intervention. Don’t just say, “Ok Boomer”, I guess you are too pigheaded to change. Scare them straight and warn them that if they persist in using checks, they run the risk of identify theft and ending up penniless and homeless.

Responsible individuals discourage boomers from using checks.  

OK Boomer, enough with the Phone Calls

I grew up in the pre-cell phone era, when rotary phones had a mechanical ring that was noticeably loud and encouraged immediate attention.

This halcyon era was before the invention of robocalls, and calls from auto insurance repair companies. When the phone blared, we stopped dead in our tracks and raced to answer the phone. Back then, every call mattered because it came from a friend or family member.

Some of my most indelible childhood memories are of answering the phone and blurting out, “Mama it’s my tia from Mexico.”

In this high-tech society, boomers do not realize that the rotary phone of old has almost no resemblance to the smartphone of today. A cell phone is a small computer with calling as just one of its many functions.  In lieu of placing calls, youngsters text or send DMs. No one needs to remind me “OK boomer, a text message would have sufficed.”

Advice to boomers: Think twice before you call your children or grandchildren, you may be interrupting them from shopping online, swiping right on a dating app, doom scrolling, or watching the latest viral videos.

Many young people experience anxiety when answering the phone, even when they know it’s a relative calling. They are accustomed to communicating via text and are rendered almost mute when they are forced to engage in a phone conversation.

Word to the wise! If you cannot break your habit of placing calls, your nieces and nephews may block or ghost your stubborn old ass.