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Here's a counterpoint: The traditional secretarial position has pretty much vanished in the workplace. A lot of offices had a TON of low-level administrative

by cube13 15y ago

Here's a counterpoint: The traditional secretarial position has pretty much vanished in the workplace. A lot of offices had a TON of low-level administrative filing and assistant positions even in the 80's. But they've almost completely vanished now for mid to low-level managers or office grunts. The main reason? Outlook and email. A lot of the traditional roles of a secretary(dealing with mail, scheduling meetings, replying to people) are handled almost entirely by the application. Since almost everything is now handled through email, there isn't any reason to have gigantic mail rooms. None of those unskilled jobs have been replaced by anything other than technology. This is actually a new paradigm in history-traditionally, new technology has reduced the need for highly skilled jobs, for example, scribes were replaced by teams of less-skilled workers after Guntenburg's press. Now, technology is reducing the need for unskilled positions. The end result is that a lot of jobs that needed manpower simply don't anymore.

crpatino 15y ago
Just a little bit of nitpicking... my mother was one of those secretaries in the 70's and 80's, So I can speak with some degree of confidence about this subject. I agree that the work was grunt... but it was far from being "unskilled". Companies' needs have not changed that much over time, but the means to achieve those ends have. Low-level office clerks would basically tasked with executing the "organizational software" that kept the business running. They had to follow complex procedures in a very precise way, if the opaque data contained in paper was ever to be used as information. And remember, we are talking about the entry level positions here. Now, there was a career path for those white collar workers as well. I.e. my mother, she never got a high school diploma, or even a junior high "traditional" education. But, she had responsibilities that would be now require a college education, and paid accordingly. For the conversations, I take that she would basically execute algorithms by hand and process information in the same way a RDBMS would in the present, even if she does not have the technical vocabulary to describe it that way. So, the fact that you think those jobs are "unskilled" reflects a lot of how, as a society, we have come to trivialize a whole economic activity that was rendered obsolete by technology. What happened to those people is the equivalent of what would happen to the medical profession if nanotechnology advanced to a point when a semi-literate technician could listen to a patient for 5 minutes and choose from a handful of flasks which mix of nano-robots to inject her.
- cube13 15y ago
  >So, the fact that you think those jobs are "unskilled" reflects a lot of how, as a society, we have come to trivialize a whole economic activity that was rendered obsolete by technology. Not really. By "unskilled" labor, I mean the entry level positions that traditionally didn't require much schooling, and could learn and become proficient at their jobs rather quickly. In other words, the traditional low-level secretary or clerk positions that a lot of people had as their first jobs out of college or high school. Now, if you were competent, they would promote you, which is what happened with your mother, I'm sure. Unfortunately, the loss of those entry level positions also means that career path, which defined a LOT of people's lives, is removed. Honestly, I think that's the bigger issue here, because it was possible for an entry-level employee with an unskilled position to learn the craft and get promoted to a position that would now only be given to a skilled employee with an education. That simply isn't the case anymore, and that's what really is hurting certain segments of the job market.

by cube13 15y ago

crpatino 15y ago

Just a little bit of nitpicking... my mother was one of those secretaries in the 70's and 80's, So I can speak with some degree of confidence about this subject. I agree that the work was grunt... but it was far from being "unskilled". Companies' needs have not changed that much over time, but the means to achieve those ends have. Low-level office clerks would basically tasked with executing the "organizational software" that kept the business running. They had to follow complex procedures in a very precise way, if the opaque data contained in paper was ever to be used as information. And remember, we are talking about the entry level positions here. Now, there was a career path for those white collar workers as well. I.e. my mother, she never got a high school diploma, or even a junior high "traditional" education. But, she had responsibilities that would be now require a college education, and paid accordingly. For the conversations, I take that she would basically execute algorithms by hand and process information in the same way a RDBMS would in the present, even if she does not have the technical vocabulary to describe it that way. So, the fact that you think those jobs are "unskilled" reflects a lot of how, as a society, we have come to trivialize a whole economic activity that was rendered obsolete by technology. What happened to those people is the equivalent of what would happen to the medical profession if nanotechnology advanced to a point when a semi-literate technician could listen to a patient for 5 minutes and choose from a handful of flasks which mix of nano-robots to inject her.

cube13 15y ago
>So, the fact that you think those jobs are "unskilled" reflects a lot of how, as a society, we have come to trivialize a whole economic activity that was rendered obsolete by technology. Not really. By "unskilled" labor, I mean the entry level positions that traditionally didn't require much schooling, and could learn and become proficient at their jobs rather quickly. In other words, the traditional low-level secretary or clerk positions that a lot of people had as their first jobs out of college or high school. Now, if you were competent, they would promote you, which is what happened with your mother, I'm sure. Unfortunately, the loss of those entry level positions also means that career path, which defined a LOT of people's lives, is removed. Honestly, I think that's the bigger issue here, because it was possible for an entry-level employee with an unskilled position to learn the craft and get promoted to a position that would now only be given to a skilled employee with an education. That simply isn't the case anymore, and that's what really is hurting certain segments of the job market.