Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 19:52:38 -0800
From: "Noel Mathiesen" <noel_mella-AT-mailcity.com>
Subject: Re: Work, leisure and society (& technology)


Brad mcCormick noted my interest in this subject and acked me did I have any opinions or stories.  I don't know if this is of interest to everybody on the list so here goes.  I you don't want to hear tell me to go away.

I personally was employed in universities for ten years working in information technology.  I am a linrarian who used to work on library catralogues.  What I now realize is that I spent the entire ten years working myself out of a job.  As everything moved onto computer, and then the computers from different merging institutions were moved into one system I worked my way up my career path.

I enjoyed this time as I got to try my hand at just about everything in my field.  I was the 'bright new executive' that the old guys love to  hate.  But wait, in 1993 I was retrenched in a mass layoff of seventy workers from my institution.  management kept only one junior librarian from my unit to run everything that seven  people had been working on.  "How will I run this?" she asked on my last day.  "Don't worry I said just do the very esentials.  Everythings automated."  At the time I was convinced we all went because of financial problems.  Now I would say this was a smart and increasingly common move.  Why tailor everything to the exact standard an organization would 'like' to have when a 'fair' service can be provided much cheaper.

But wasn't I the high flying executive with the world at his feet?  Yes I was and within two weeks I had another full time job.  But then in 1995 it happened again.  At the time I had worked out what was happening and was trying to make a lateral move into the then 'new' field of Internet and Web services.  At the time no one in my library had the forsight to see that this would be the big new area of service.  Also there was just no money.  This time I was layed off in a smaller retrenchment of five people.

Business wise I understand what happened.  Technology means you need less employees.  In times of economic cutback a business is willing to sacrifice some service or 'standards' to survive.  With technology you often only neeed educated juniors to run the 'guts' of a business.  This means some work for support people like secretaries, some new graduates and a very few upper management.  This is Peter's theory of flat management: a triangle with very few levels to it.  In short technology seems to imply increased unemployment.  Interestingly it implies unemployment of experienced graduates: an new group in the figures.

I have now been unemployed for six years and moved twice to new regions lookin for work.  Of course others may experience life differently to me.  Questions for the future are(1) What work are we going to do? (2) How are we going to cope personaly in the mean time? (3)What about leisure as an alternative to work?  Is this practical?

I hope people are interested.


---
Noel Mathiesen, Information Broker
3/78 Jeffery Street, Armidale NSW 2350
Ph.: 011 61 2 6771 3175
noel_mella-AT-mailcity.com



LYCOShop. Thousands of products!  One location!
http://shop.lycos.com/


     --- from list technology-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---