Love to complain? There’s a QR code for that

QR codes. We talk about them a lot.

At coffee, at dinners out, even in the privacy of our own homes.

We’re at our best when we complain about the replacement of paper menus with QR codes. But we’re full-service complainers. We don’t like the codes in other places, as well.

No surprise there, we’re of a certain age, and with that comes the right to gripe about everything.

Right now, it’s fun to go to the post office in Geneseo because you can bump into a pal and complain about the reconfigured parking lot.

Instead of parking vertically to the post office and the adjoining bank, we have to park horizontally.

Can you believe it?  After decades of doing something one way, we’re forced to do it another.

Yes, the parking lot is well-lined and well-marked. Yes, there have been no collisions. But, hey, it’s a change, and we don’t like change.

In defense of the parking lot, there’s probably a QR code somewhere that leads the tech savvy to the rationale behind the new alignment. No one has found it.

Of course, if one of us discovered the QR code, we’d have to get some smart-aleck millennial to use it.

You may not have known this, but millennials, those people born from 1981 to 1996, have a thing for QR codes.

Research indicates that more than half of them find viewing a menu with a QR code to be a positive experience. They are the only age group with a majority on the side of QR menus.

Is there a Rochester connection to the QR code?

Searching for something nice to say about QR codes, I have always hoped that they were concocted in Rochester, probably by the Eastman Kodak Co. or by Xerox Inc.

I could then make the inventor of the QR code a Remarkable Rochesterian.

I could write about how she was looking at ink spots on a napkin and realized that, if you scrambled them, they could give us a gateway to websites that was even better than a barcode.

If the QR code had been created in Rochester, we’d could be QR proud. The negativity would end.

Alas, the internet tells me that Masahiro Hara, an employee of Denso Wave, a Japanese automotive company, came up with the QR code in 1994.

It tells me that the “QR” stands for “quick response.” Didn’t know that. It also tells me that QR codes took off in the early 2000s, thanks to cameras and scanners in cellphones.

That would loop things back to Kodak’s Steven J. Sasson, the engineer who invented the digital camera in the 1970s. But it’s a stretch to blame him for the QR code.

Maybe I’ve got to get out of the blame game and take some baby steps toward QR love.

Actually, I’ve sort of done that. The other day, I used my phone and a QR code to access a beer menu. I drew praise from my granddaughter, Casey. Other people at the table were impressed.

I drank my lager, smug and satisfied, at peace with the world, even with the post office parking lot. Thank you QR code.

Remarkable Rochesterian

I wrote an obituary story last week about Dr. Paul Griner, an extraordinary physician and hospital administrator. Let’s add his name to the list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at https://data.democratandchronicle.com/remarkable-rochesterians/ or by clicking on this QR code.

Dr. Paul Griner (1933-2024): The chief executive of Strong Memorial Hospital from 1984 to 1995, he was a widely recognized expert on health-care policy who served as president of three national medical organizations and was the author of more than 130 publications. A native of Pennsylvania, he graduated from Harvard College and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, interned at Massachusetts General Hospital, was a resident at Strong, served in the U.S. Air Force and returned to Strong in 1964. A specialist in blood disorders, he continued to treat patients, and advocate for them, throughout his career.

From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at [email protected] or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: QR codes are everywhere these days in Rochester NY