The learned wanted, learners need not apply

Back in the bad old days before the Internet was ubiquitous, I was the sysop of the Genealogy Roundtable on GENIE (General Electric Network for Information Exchange).  It had a very primitive typed command interface that many users had difficulty mastering.

One user either couldn't print or couldn't save a file from the Genealogy Roundtable.  My being in the Twin Cities and he being in Cleveland made it very difficult for me to know exactly what was on his screen.  I went to Cleveland for personal reasons and as a side trip, went to his house.  I forget what terms were on his screen, but he had a completely different idea what those terms meant than I did.  Once I explained them to him, he was able to do what he wanted.

During this same period, I wrote a genealogy program called Family Events.  One user complained that certain printed charts had lines that shouldn't be there.  I couldn't visualize or understand his problem because my printed charts looked OK.  It wasn't until we were both at the same genealogy conference that I understood the problem.  He was using a non-Apple printer and I was using an Apple printer.  As a shortcut I had given unneeded lines a negative length.  The Apple printer didn't print these lines; the non-Apple printer printed them as long extraneous lines.  I think once back home I recoded the problem in about an hour.

It's sort of like the urban legend of the kid who solves the problem of the truck jammed under a bridge: let some air out of the tires.

Once I wrote the above paragraph I thought of a related subject that I wanted to write about - the "shortage" of "high-tech" workers.  From this thought, I changed the title of this entry from "More on problem solving" to "The learned wanted, learners need not apply".  This "shortage" has been going on for decades.

The basic problem is that too many employers want somebody who can begin working on complex problems on day one.  Once those problems are solved, you may be replaced by someone who can begin working on the new problems on day one.

I've never had a job that I did not require some training after I was hired – from grocery clerk to bus driver to main-frame computer programmer.  My very first computer job I had to teach myself the basics of programming the company's computer.  For my nearly 20-year job with Univac it was constant change and new things to learn.  I didn't know FORTRAN, but I was set to finding and correcting errors in the compiler and its library.  In fact, our supervisor, John Macgowan, never did learn how to write a FORTRAN program, but he was a real whiz at finding and correcting errors in the compiler.  I won't bore you with the details, but it was nearly 20 years of constant learning and change.  I burned out when microcomputers came on the scene and I didn't feel like Univac was keeping up.  So, I started my own company and learned how to program several microcomputers without the benefit of special training.

What I didn't learn was how to run a business.  Then I learned that businesses don't want new employees who will learn.  That is, learners need not apply, we want the learned.

See "So-called high tech shortage".

Do you really want term limits?

If you think that term limits of legislators at all levels will solve all of our government problems, then you better impose term limits on another group.

We will need term limits on individual lobbyists.  If we don't then experienced lobbyists will walk all over inexperienced legislators.  See "The Fixer", James Fallows, The Atlantic, June 2013.  It is about Gov. Jerry Brown and California politics.  California voters imposed term limits.  "Because legislators don't know what they doing, they're more under the permanent influence structure of lobbyists and bureaucrats."

But we'll also have to have term limits on lobbying firms.  The experience of their term-limited lobbyists will just be passed on.

We will also have to have term limits on corporations.  They will just pass their experience from one lobbying firm to another.

While we're at it, why not term limits on political donations.  If you donate to a candidate, then you can't donate to that candidate or that particular office until the term limit expires.  For example, if the term limit for the House of Representatives is six years, then you cannot donate to any candidate for that seat for six years.

The law of unintended consequences will bite you no matter what solution you find for current problems.  Gov. Hiram Johnson gave California voters the initiative to create law.  This was supposed to be an antidote to the control that the Southern Pacific had over legislators.  Now, deep-pocket corporations use the initiative to promote their own interests.  Propositon 8 on limits to property tax brought California's spending on school systems to second in the nation to somewhere in the 40s.

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.  And then some.

The Corp giveth and the Corp taketh away

I thought this parody of Job 1:21 might be original with me.  I found only two references in my first try, both in reference to the Army Corps of Engineers and New Orleans.  When I broadened my search to "the corp gives", I found 17,000 references, some of them with my meaning of Corporation.

I thought of this phrase as I was working with macros in Excel 2011 for the Mac.  Microsoft took away macros in Excel 2008 and put them back in Excel 2011.  But the macros that worked in Excel 2004 don't always work in Excel 2011.

Also, when I plugged my iPod into my Mac, iTunes would automatically be launched.  iTunes would then begin syncing my iPod.  This was true even with OS X Lion.  Then in some version of iTunes the auto load/synch stopped.  I have to start iTunes myself.

This certainly is just an annoyance compared to Job's problems, but one would think the "free market" could provide a more consistent and efficient experience for its customers.

Did jobs ever return?

Did jobs ever return?
No, they never returned
And their fate is still unlearn'd
They may ride forever
'neath the halls of Congress
They're the jobs that never returned.

Actually, the fate of many jobs has been learned, but not by those in Washington who think their posturing and speeches are going to bring them back.

Changing technology keeps changing the jobs needed.  The railroads put lots of cart drivers out of business.  More powerful locomotives with more safety features moved more freight with fewer and smaller crews.  Computers reduced the need for typists and all kinds of other office help.  The Internet reduced the need for printing, sales people, and order processors.  I think most of us over 50 can make, in less than an hour, a list of 100 jobs that no longer exist or whose need is greatly reduced.

Politicians think that tax cuts or business incentives are going to bring jobs back.  But the hiring of the unemployed is going to be minimal.  More than likely the target businesses are going to hire people from other firms with the required "experience" or "skills".

That is another factor that makes creating jobs so difficult.  Once upon a time, companies hired workers with some general knowledge about the work and trained them on the job for the needed specifics.  Nowadays, if you don't have the required "skill set", fuhgedaboutit!  Some of these skill sets are so detailed that it is a wonder that companies find anybody.

See "The New Poor: In Job Market Shift, Some Workers Are Left Behind", Catherine Rampell, New York Times, 2010-05-12, "Dentistry and the economy", "Forget jobs, create opportunities",  and "Where have all the jobs gone?"