The good old days or the curse of technology

peasant · 08-03-2011 11:31pm #1

An example from work:

When I started my working life in a busy office, the height of technology was one computer for the whole office (for accounts and stock control), a telex machine at reception and a telephone at each desk.

Yes, we were busy, very busy in fact ...but we had time. Time to think over what we would say when calling the next customer, time to make notes, time to plan the days work and time to stick to the plan. We also had time for each other, co-ordinate our actions and have a bit of banter.

These days I arrive to 60 e-mails that have come in over night and can anticipate another 60-100 to arrive during the day. Each and every mail is more urgent than the next one, each and every mail gets cc'd to the world and their grandmother and the world and their grandmother duly responds with more useless input and duplication.

In the good old days work consisted of structuring your work load, making a plan of "attack", sticking to it and hopefully achieving something meaningful at the end of the day.

These days you're overrun with white noise. Everybody has to have their say simply because technology allows them to do so. Half the day is spent filtering out meaningful signals from the background radition and getting some order into it ...the other half is spent trying to deal with the important stuff while fending off the marginal stuff.
Actual achievement at the end of the day ...pretty marginal in relation to the amount of information processed. And then there is the task of shaping it all into a format that the business software will understand and be capable of handling and processing.
All the while you sit in front of your screen, the lone ninja, fighting the world. All you see and hear from your colleagues is the occasional sigh as they do the same. (unless of course you get to talk to them during one of those useless telephone conferences even though they're sitting right next to you

)

I'm still getting about as much done (in actual value) as I did in the old days ...but these days I have to wade through ten to twenty times more crap to get there.

I hate e-mail

I hate software

looksee · 09-03-2011 12:35am

I don't think you can compare the two. You don't have to go all that far back to be pre-computer. My job from 17 to 21 was in the Probation Service in the UK. We had manual typewriters, dictaphones, telephones (one to an office of three people) and a wax stencil duplicating machine. All records were paper based, files were kept in the gloomy cellars of the houses that had been converted to offices. The system worked.

Maybe now the same number of clients would need less admin people, I don't know. I am not sure that computers would have made a great deal of difference to the quality of the service. You had to be able to type much faster and more accurately than is necessary now - corrections are so easy on a computer.

In the 80's I was doing magazine production, using a compositor and a dark room camera. Still no photocopier, no computer. In comparison to now the work was much slower and less visually attractive, but still you did not need complex IT skills.

Now I use a computer as a natural extension of myself. But I think it is a whole different way of living a life. The instant contact and communication is a blessing in some ways, but invasive and almost sinister in others. The need to keep communicating all the time on a mobile phone, the inability to do any work until the ipod has been sorted and is supplying suitable music, the instant availability of any information that you might need, and a whole lot that you don't need, provides more distraction than really anyone needs.

I don't think technology is a curse, but the way it is used can be. I don't think that many aspects of the good old days were all that good, but there was not the constant bombardment of information that we have now. I think we have to move on, but at the same time hope that we do not put ourselves into such a technology dependent situation that a major breakdown would lead to the breakdown of society.

Given the difference in life between the beginning and the end of the last century, which we survived and adapted to, presumably we will continue to survive and adapt as technology moves on.

Rubecula · 11-03-2011 11:59am

When I started working it was in £.s.d. days and I earned a massive £5 per week. £2 to my mum for my keep and £3 for me which lasted until the next payday very easily......... Now my wages are gone in a day.:(

centrifuge · 11-03-2011 6:38pm

On my desk at work is a stack of punch cards and some COBOL programming sheets. I kid you not.

The fact that they came from a museum amuses me.

These feckin' IPhones and Androids have us bombarded with e-mails.

BBDBB · 11-03-2011 6:51pm

I used to enjoy the days before mobile phones

I did a job that meant I travelled around a fair bit

Head Office/ My boss, knew my intended diary plans but was unable to get hold of me until I reached that destined office and got given the message to phone him. Gave me a bit of control as to when I phoned back and also to be a bit flexible with my journey

slavetothegrind · 11-03-2011 7:06pm

oh i hear you.

drive you mad as the phone always rings when you're in the middle of something awkward and intricate.

my first mobile was shoebox sized unit and battery lasted maybe 4 hours!
wasn't new at the time but still:)

humberklog · 11-03-2011 8:27pm

I always keep my phone on silent and check it when it suits me. Much more civilised form of contact.

I find it needlessly stressful having it on ring and being immediately contactable.

Scarlett68 · 11-03-2011 11:34pm

centrifuge wrote: »

On my desk at work is a stack of punch cards and some COBOL programming sheets. I kid you not.

Ive got RPGII coding sheets and a 8086 assembly language book on mine:o and the saddest part is that they didnt come from any museum....they were mine!!!!

OldGoat · 12-03-2011 4:54pm

I have to say that I love coding in COBOL. I'm just weird that way.

centrifuge · 13-03-2011 6:25am

COBOL coders = living legends.

Respect, as I believe the Young People say.

Scarlett68 · 13-03-2011 11:00pm

OldGoat wrote: »

I have to say that I love coding in COBOL. I'm just weird that way.

Hehe! I loved COBOL too and was a sucker for Assembly (is my weird, weirder than yours?!)......All hail procedural programming and bah to this new fangled OO stuff

BBDBB · 14-03-2011 9:01am

Programming????:eek:

10 PRINT "BBDBB IS COOL"
20 GOTO 10
30 RUN

OldGoat · 14-03-2011 9:40am

0011000100110000001000000011111100100000001000100101000001110101011
0111001100011011010000110001101100001011100100110010001110011001000
0001100001011100100110010100100000011101110110100001100101011100100
1100101001000000110100101110100001001110111001100100000011000010111
0100001011100010001000001101000010100011001000110000001000000100011
10100111101010100010011110010000000110001001100000000110100001010

chucken1 · 15-03-2011 4:13am

Am I the only oulwan thats new to computers of any sort? I never had use or need for one. I sat in front of a computer for the first time at the grand old age of 45..I think Im doin ok

Rubecula · 15-03-2011 12:11pm

Good lord. When i first started out on computers you didn't have a scren you had to pop in punch cards and then decipher the cards that popped out. That is if the valves didn't overheat and you had to replace them, then start again from scratch. Getting a computer to add one and one in those days took a day...LOL

(I still own an Amstrad 1640 with a 5.25 floppy drive, and it still works.)

FoxT · 22-03-2011 12:11am

Never learnt COBOL, but I enjoyed assembly language, ended up writing assy for a few different processors. Also BASIC, FORTRAN, PASCAL.

I will occasionally bang out the odd script for the fun of it - and got as far as 'hello world' with Java - but I find modern languages are less enjoyable - too distant from the underlying machine. Though, to be fair, you can do a lot with them, quickly.

In my first job (1986) I specced & built a computer. It had 2 350MB drives, each one weighed about 20 kg. The 4MB memory board was about 16" square.It had...ETHERNET!!! It was a lot of fun.

syklops · 04-04-2011 9:16am

Are we off topic yet?

OP, there is a great cartoon I was looking for but could not find. The first bit is a guy looking at his screen going ":rolleyes: 60 emails on the one topic! Can we not sort it out in a meeting?", and the second window has a guy walking out of a meeting room going "A 3 hour meeting that could have easily been taken care of over email :rolleyes:".

I think back in the old days you had just as many annoyances, you just had nothing to compare it too.

One thing I will say that I wish they would bring back is secretaries. The bean counters in most companies say we dont need them because we have email and calenders and automatic meeting room booking, but it really is no substitute for another person helping you to get on with the work. I work in a very technical field, but the amount of time I spend on pure paper work is shocking. I recently spent 4 hours doing my expenses from a trip. Now the only person with a secretary is the CEO.

The good old days or the curse of technology

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