ttj - Tom Jones

A local heating firm just came to service the boiler.  This is part of the rented house, so I don't seem to have a choice in supplier.  Having finished the job, they put a blank screen in front of me, and asked me to sign.  The optimistic interpretation of this would be "signing a blank piece of paper means nothing; therefore signing this blank screen means nothing.  My signature is not itself confidential, and by providing it here I do not commit to anything.  At most, the implied meaning of signing a blank sheet for someone who's just done a job in the house is "they visited". Being conservative about what I sign, I asked, in very bad German, what am I signing here.  At this point he did something on the touchscreen, and there was a picture of an invoice on a sheet of A4 paper.  He continued to hold the device facing himself, and I was unable to read it upside-down and at a large angle and held by another person.  But the decision was already ma...

 The process of signing documents has got much worse in the last 7 years. The way it used to work is: they gave you two copies, you see if you're willing to sign, check they're the same, sign one, and give the other to them, noting on yours that you signed the other, or just signing it too, it doesn't matter. The way it often works now is: they give you a small blank screen to sign, and a stylus type thing to do it with.  You sign the blank screen, and their device captures this signature.  They then attach the signature, to whatever the fuck they want. I first became aware of this returning from Zurich airport after being away for a month.  I had had a GA, which means you buy access to all Swiss public transport for a fixed price.  I think it was 7 or 8 k for a year first class.  It saves a lot of time buying tickets.  I hadn't made enough use of my GA to justify the price, but I appreciated the convenience.  On this occasion my GA had expired wh...