Do you think your job is safe? Think again …
“Duck & Cover” isn’t a strategy. But there’s still hope.
Once upon a time, I went to a college in a small mountain town where I picked up a degree in English and another in Mass Media Communications. I promptly moved to the Big City and tried to get my foot in the door writing for any of the small daily papers in the area. That door wouldn’t even crack open … it was as if it’d been caulked shut. I called them all, offering to work as an unpaid intern just so I’d become a known variable and have a better shot at getting a job, should one ever open up. “No,” they all said, “we already have too many unpaid interns.” I couldn’t even give it away … I stopped just short of offering to pay them to let me work there.
So, I ended up taking the first job I found: a shipping & receiving manager gig at a small, local toy store. I worked there for a while and then moved on to manage the ship/receive operation at a large retailer [pour one out for Media Play].
When I saw this video featuring Boston Robotics’ robot, “Stretch”, I wondered how many tasks/team members Stretch would have displaced had it been deployed in our warehouses, back in the day:
Spooky. Cool … but spooky.
We all know that automation can affect blue-collar jobs. It’s been happening for ages … but now it’s getting better & better, faster & faster.
But what about white-collar jobs? You know, the ones that require that applicants possess an expensive degree just to apply for a position, even if the degree isn’t even remotely associated with the job in question?
Yeah. Those.
Well, it turns out those aren’t such a safe haven from automation anymore, as is covered in Kevin Roose’s brilliant NYT article, “The Robots Are Coming for Phil in Accounting”:
Here are a few hot quotes from the article:
“Executives generally spin these bots as being good for everyone, “streamlining operations” while “liberating workers” from mundane and repetitive tasks.”
Yeah. They’re regular fucking freedom fighters. But wait for it … here comes the haymaker:
“But they are also liberating plenty of people from their jobs.”
Pow. That one’s gonna open an eyebrow.
But wait … there’s more.
“White-collar workers, armed with college degrees and specialized training, once felt relatively safe from automation. But recent advances in A.I. and machine learning have created algorithms capable of outperforming doctors, lawyers and bankers at certain parts of their jobs. And as bots learn to do higher-value tasks, they are climbing the corporate ladder. The trend — quietly building for years, but accelerating to warp speed since the pandemic — goes by the sleepy moniker “robotic process automation.” And it is transforming workplaces at a pace that few outsiders appreciate. Nearly 8 in 10 corporate executives surveyed by Deloitte last year said they had implemented some form of R.P.A. Another 16 percent said they planned to do so within three years.”
Well, there you have it. The pandemic has jammed a cattle-prod into the tin tuchus of automation, kicking off a stampede.
Roose’s article paints a very clear and vivid picture of where we’re headed. To say that many of our expectations of how things are “supposed to be” have been scuttled would be an understatement.
Many stand gobsmacked, very unprepared for this moment and the moments to come.
Look … there’s nothing we can do to stop this particular Panzer. You can sprain your wrist while writing your congressperson — it will be to no avail. You can wait for Universal Basic Income to save the day …. yeah, it’ll be here about the same time that Superman shows up.
Market forces are what they are, and the onward/upward march of technological progress will continue.
Assume you’re not safe and prepare accordingly. You can rely upon yourself. As I’ve said earlier & elsewhere:
- Become an expert generalist
- Cultivate a non-traditional & personalized approach toward self-education
- Keep your network active
- Know the terrain [and adjust your stance & actions accordingly]
- Don’t be afraid to pivot & shift into new terrain. Stick & move.
This is most definitely a brave new world. We can huddle in the fetal position and hope we don’t get kicked anywhere too sensitive, or we can leverage this challenge as an opportunity to level up.
Let’s level up. Final boss time is coming.
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