From: Natasha Vita-More (natasha@natasha.cc)
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 21:21:20 MDT
This is obsolete by now, but it bounced to me and I'm just bouncing it back
to you -:)
At 11:05 AM 8/31/02 -0400, Ron wrote:
Natasha writes: Exporting high productivity jobs is an excellent way to
educate and integrate. Sure, robotics will take over the
day-worker/night-worker repetition-type labor. When this happens, laborers
will move up to managerial positions.
Natasha,
I am not entirely clear as to how this will occur. Let me give a
ficticious example to illustrate my confusion. Pretend we have a small
unit of 100 workers and we replace them with 25 machines requiring 25
people as machine tenders. That leaves 75 workers to move into management
by my understanding of your suggestion.
Now I believe that to do as my illustration requires is a good thing
but I am not sure I understood you correctly.
For streamlining how change affects structure, think about telephone
operators. In the past we rung up one central operator and asked to be
connected to someone. The operator rang through to our party and then
connected us.
Today, we either use a digitized telephone to connect with our parties or
we connect with operators all over the country to locate a party for
us. We also have the option of using our computer to dial up a person and
converse in the ether-zone of bandwidth connection.
Where did the operators go? They were replaced by electronic scripting
designed to sound human and to perform some of these human functions. The
operators have gone to managerial positions or the many jobs that opened up
because of the new technologies.
Your hypothetical scenarios introduces 100 workers who are replaced by 25
machines. Some of the workers become managers, overseeing the performance
of the machine. The other workers go back to school and upgrade their
skills and learn how to handle new jobs there were created. We see this
occurring over and over again.
Take a corporate atmosphere which has 10 secretaries working for 20
executives. Now skip ahead several decades.
20 years later, for the same corporation there are now 5 secretaries for
the 20 executives, 2 word processors, 2 IT department personnel, 2 records
department personnel, and 1 person in office services who maintains the fax
machines, the xerox machine and supplies the other department personnel
with paper, toner, etc. One of the secretaries went to a tech school and
learned how to be an IT person; 2 secretaries went to local computer
schools and learned new software for the WP department. One secretary
became an executive. Also, 3 new people were hired from low-paying job market.
Natasha
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