Showing posts with label typing pool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typing pool. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Computers get the new jobs.

The computers have moved into vast areas of the workplace.  Back when I  started as an engineer, we made pencil sketches of our designs on squared paper.  We took these down to drafting and drafting would produce gorgeous D size vellum drawings.  The master vellums were kept in drafting, and Ozalid copies were made for production.  Engineering change orders did not take effect until drafting had updated the master vellum and gotten the engineer to sign off on it. 
  Then we got desktop CAD.  It took a while to catch on, maybe ten years, but then we engineers did the drawings with a CAD program running on our desktop computers, and the drafting departments just withered away.  By the time I retired, there were no drafting departments.  That's a lot of good jobs, gone.
   When I started in the business, to make a trip, we called a travel agency to get the air tickets, the rental car reservation and the motel reservations.  By the time I retired, the travel agencies were gone, and I made my own reservations at Orbitz using my trusty desktop.  More good jobs, gone.
   Years ago, when we needed a memo, a letter to a customer, a proposal, an ECO, an instruction manual, a test procedure or anything formal, we wrote it out long hand on a yellow lined pad, and took it down to the typing pool.  They would type up a rough draft, we would correct same, then a final draft got typed.  Each department would have a typing pool.  In addition to typing stuff, they kept the supply cabinets stocked with paper and pencils, distributed the interoffice mail, and served as information centers.  The head of the typing pool always knew everything and everyone.  If you needed to know who to ask, or what procedure to follow,  anything, the typing pool would know.   Then we got Word-for-Windows with spell check and we began to type our own stuff.  Again, the typing pools went away.  Interoffice mail just didn't get delivered, there was no one to deliver it.  More good jobs gone.
   Again, way back when, companies had salesmen, who traveled to customer's sites and sold parts to the engineers.  The idea was, get an engineer to design their part into the circuit, and your company owned that socket for the life of the product.  We engineers were always happy to see the salesmen, 'cause the salesmen always brought fresh new data books, with the specs on all the latest parts.  A salesman was an opportunity to replace your 10 year old TTL databook, with an up to date version.  Then we got the internet.  Companies posted the datasheets on every part they made on the web.  We didn't need data books anymore, we could run off the datasheet on the parts we cared about on the office laserprinter.  I don't think I saw a parts salesman after 1995.  More good jobs gone.
   I wonder what all those draftsmen, travel agents, typists, and salesmen are doing now.