Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
There are two articles that struck me today as being pertinent to the way that we work and the way that we view work…
The first one was an article about “shadow work”, pointing out the role of tech in automating the service economy. This isn’t exactly a new development, is it? Remember how we laughed at the scene in Back to the Future when the gas station attendants swarmed the car when it pulled in? That film came out thirty years ago and we were already used to pumping our own gas, cleaning our own windows and checking our own oil. In 1988, ATMs hit the banking scene, and were called initially called “Harvey Wallbanker” to personalize them in order to convince folks to use them instead of going inside the branch. Along those lines, Equitable Bank of Maryland had a campaign where there were signs on all the branch doors:
<-- Tiny tellers this way Regular tellers this way -->
Nowadays? When was the last time you were even in a bank branch? And I’ll bet you have bagged your own groceries and maybe even gone through the self-service like where you scanned in the items and checked out yourself.
And as “shadow work” becomes more ubiquitous, there has been a proliferation of “contract” employment into the mainstream. The concept was that workers would enjoy flexible hours and still be able to make a living and the report states that dream isn’t materializing for most folks, according to this second article.
The question that I have is where is the entry point for newcomers to the job market if all the traditional service jobs have slowly faded away to shadow and contract work?
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