roundtable: Re: Curious comment about Job Displacement, CITS

roundtable: Re: Curious comment about Job Displacement, CITS

Re: Curious comment about Job Displacement, CITS

ics@usa.net
Wed, 6 Sep 1995 22:18:59 -0600 

Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 22:18:59 -0600
Message-Id: <199509070418.WAA11163@mail.usa.net>
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: ics@usa.net
Subject: Re: Curious comment about Job Displacement, CITS


Regards to the Group:

But....

> THE DE-SKILLING OF AMERICA
> "One thing this fascination with computer technology and saving 
> microseconds will accomplish is to further dampen earnings and salaries.  

Give me a break - sounds like an overdose or PROZAC...


> The Luddites weren't quite right.  Technology doesn't necessarily 
> displace workers.  First, it lowers workers' ability to demand higher 
> earnings.  Computer scanners, for instance, de-skilled grocery cashiers, 
> so their earnings haven't kept pace.  

Did it ever occur to whomever wrote this article that clerks in a 
grocery store may be able to do more than just check the price of a 
grocery item and then punch it into a highly complex machine called 
a cash register?  

Do they have a clue that one employee can lose a %50,000 lifetime 
customer just by their sloppy attitude in a checkout line?

Perhaps customer service could be ingrained into their very being and
actualy cause the customer to smile when they leave instead of grumble 
about the prices.

> Indeed, one of the ironies today 
> is how the Vice President can keep talking about fostering computers, on 
> the one hand, and then explaining how American families have seen their 
> real incomes erode over the past 10 years, as if he were a cybernetic 
> Lois Lane, `galactically stupid' and thus totally unable to draw the 
> connection." (Telecommunications Policy Review 27 Aug 95 p3)
> (from EDUPAGE, 9/3/95)

The above comment is a big clue of things to come - the paradigm shift
happened in the mid-eighties...not in the last 18 months with the 
Internet and the WWW...but we still have people "whine and cheesing" 
about evolution in the marketlplace and how everything is so unfair...

They should be concerned about how to add value to their products and
services so that they can remain viable.

It simply does no good to suggest that technology changes are bad in 
that we are losing low skilled worker jobs...really this was the point 
of the whole industrial revolution - keep the worker from doing mundane 
tasks - use tools and technology to make the worker MORE productive and 
provide more free time...problem is: 

     * we haven't trained people to be self-sufficient in school, 
        
     * we haven't trained them to how to develop a work ethic that places
       results above union contract breaks

     * we haven't puts the customer first and profits second (which is a
       paradox in itself - since whenever you do that, profits come back 
       real strong anyway) 

     * we don't teach in school how to add value to the environment...

     * We don't encourage people to keep learning new skills ON THE JOB.

People that complain about the earlier topic are frankly,
irresponsible...get a clue, if you aren't adding value - in the CURRENT
marketplace - what exactly are you doing?  

Where does it say you have the right to stop learning after you leave 
school?  

Where does it say that you are guaranteed a right to some mundane low
skilled job regardless of how negatively it impacts a business?

Shall I go on?

Other than that I have no strong feelings on the subject...

Jerry Carleo
Director - Pueblo County Information Systems
Pueblo, CO
http://www.usa.net/pueblo/
ics@usa.net

[CNI Home Page]