alt Hacker NewsSome real gold from SuburbanWhiteChick in the comments:
Fifth. Computerization has not improved standards; it has merely homogenized them. When humans do work, even soul-killing work, they either get bored and get out or they start to slack or sabotage or, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they start to pay attention and make it matter, they get fussy, they figure out how to do it better. When computerization was introduced in the offices in the 80s (I was there) there was more hue and cry among the clerks and secretaries that they were being asked to do a worse job only faster, than among those who objected to learning the computer, and this applied not just to document production / handling and records management but to communication protocols. When companies ordered their clerical workers to fit their duodecahedronal tasks into square computerized holes, data was lost forever, as well as these workers' hard-won, thoughtfully developed methods of tracking and processing data.
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Just to parse this out, I think y'all are correct at the reading - that people didn't want to give up their custom workflows to fit in with the times. In my defense, I was up early.
I stand by my review - her entire response is excellent, whether or not I understood it, as is the original essay.
It is fascinating, that you took that quote and, somehow, managed to arrive at the opposite conclusion, while presenting this quote as confirmation.
Like the sibling comments, I see it the opposite way. Caring about your work in detail, anything the slightest bit bespoke, is becoming an antipattern. Employers want you to generate mediocre work because it's cheaper, and you only need to make sure it's not on fire. Mediocre peers are happy to go along with it as the short term path of least effort.
How did you read something like this "When companies ordered their clerical workers to fit their duodecahedronal tasks into square computerized holes, data was lost forever, as well as these workers' hard-won, thoughtfully developed methods of tracking and processing data." and manage to misinterpret it? That doesn't even seem possible.
It's insane that all the answers to your comments are disagreeing that those want to do things well and keep learning aren't entering very exciting times.
The negative comments are all agreeing, between themselves (but not with me), that people shouldn't learn anything anymore and shouldn't be inclined to do things well.
It's really just sad to read such negative comments.
As for TFA: TFA is very right in one thing... Secretary jobs didn't entirely disappear. People overreact (which is obvious in all the negative comments anytime AI is the topic) and believe "this time it's the end". It was the same with outsourcing to India/China: people overreacted and were convinced there'd be no more developers.
I do think there are still going to be devs: and it's going to be, precisely, jobs for those who want to keep learning and do things well. And it's not the vast majority: the majority were perfectly happy knowing just the bare minimum to write the equivalent of "punch the monkey" abusive JavaScript ads and picked computing because the pay was good.
I'm very happy to see those replaced by AI.
I read that the other way round. People who cared about their work struggled because they were expected to do more work of lower quality. The clock punchers learned the new tool and carried on clock punching.