7 February, 2016. 16:34
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
There was a time in Sam Grotley’s life when he used to care about his handwriting, but that part of him died shortly after Peter Brock miscalculated a downhill sweeping left-hander.
Not long after, the predictive text and spell check on his mobile and laptop left his desire to spell words correctly slowly peter out also.
Now at 23, the Brisbane-native has been thrust back into the handwriting realm as the Hutchinson Builders project manager is required to handwrite run sheets, order forms and other official documents.
“It’s fucked,” he said. “I can’t use a pen anymore, I just scribble and hope it comes out legible enough for other people to read it. All I can manage now is to get the up and down letters in the right spot and just make a few marks where the vowels would be.”
However, Mr Grotley isn’t alone in his shame.
Thousands of other young professions who cast their handwriting skills to the wind are now finding themselves back in the shackles of pen and paper.
Another Brisbane 23-year-old spoke to The Advocate just a short time ago, who not only has had to learn how to write again – he’s had to learn a whole other language.
“You’d think at journalism school they’d teach you something useful, like desktop publishing or how to edit videos,” said James Grogan, of New Farm.
“Nope, they taught us fucking shorthand. My handwriting already looked like fucking Arabic. Now I had to get my penmanship back up to scratch, plus learn this pigeon English script that nobody ever uses anymore.”
More to come.
