Computerization at Work
Work is a major component of many people's lives. Wage income is the primary way that most people between the ages of 22 and 65 obtain money for food, housing, clothing, transportation, and so on. The United States' population is about 260,000,000, and well over 110,000,000 work for a living. So, major changes in the nature of work - the number of jobs, the nature of jobs, career opportunities, job content, social relationships at work, working conditions of various kinds - affect a significant segment of society.
Computer-based systems are organized to enhance the quality of working life for clerks, administrative staff, professionals, and managers. Computerization has touched more people more visibly in their work than in any other kind of setting-home, schools, churches, banking, and so on. Workplaces are good places to examine how the dreams and dilemmas of computerization really work out for large numbers of people under an immense variety of social and technical conditions.
Office work has always involved keeping records. In the early twentieth century, the technologies and organization of office work underwent substantial change. Firms began to adopt telephones and typewriters, both of which had been recently invented. By the 1930s and 1940s, many manufactures devised electromechanical machines to help manipulate, sort, and tally specialized paper records automatically. Some of the more expensive pieces of equipment, such as specialized card-accounting machines, were much more affordable and justifiable in organizations that centralize their key office activities. Business such as insurance companies and banks, along with public agencies, adopted computer-based information systems on a large scale in the 1960s. Many of the early digital computer systems replaced electromechanical paper-card systems. The earliest systems were designed for batch operation. Clerks filled in paper forms with information about a firm's clients, and the forms were then periodically sent to a special group of keypunchers to translate the data onto cardboard card. These card each stored one line of data, up to eighty characters. They were punched with a series of holes for each character or number. Keypunch machines were clanky devices with a typewriter-style keyboard, a bin for storing blank card, and a holder for the card being punched. There was no simple way for a keypunch operator to correct an error. Cards containing errors had to be completely repunched. The punched cards were then taken to a data-processing department for a weekly or monthly run, during which time records were updated and reports were produced.
In today’s society you either have to work hard to live a good life, or just inherit a lump sum of cash, which is probably never going to happen. So instead a person has to work a usual nine to five just to put food on the table for their families, and in many cases that is not even enough. In the article, “Why We Work” by Andrew Curry, Curry examines the complexities of work and touches on the reasons why many workers feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich writes an essay called, “Serving in Florida” which is about the overlooked life of being a server and the struggles of working off low minimum wages. Curry’s standpoint on jobs is that workers are not satisfied, the job takes control of their whole life, and workers spend
This article stated that, according to a study conducted by the United Way and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), approximately 40% of young workers in Ontario are in jobs classified as part-time, temporary or self-employed. The same study also found that less than half of part-time/temporary workers were able to transition into full-time higher-wage work and, perhaps most importantly, the percentage of those able to transition will likely decline over the next decade. Clearly, the growth of part-time and temporary jobs has been growing on an upward trend over the past decade and appears to have become part of business as usual. A study conducted in 2015 by the United Way and the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) states that approximately 22% of part-time/temporary work in the past year can be characterized as precarious work, i.e. work with poor or no benefits and job security. The growth in precarious employment is due to many factors including Globalization, improved technology, changes to business models, and the economic shift from manufacturing to the service sector. These shifts have essentially formed a new economy that has a high demand for fluidity and flexibility in the common workplace, and has low a demand for the old fashioned “Standard” model of the workplace (largely full-time employees with a full suite of
The conversation about the influence of social media on race-bending as it applies to comic book culture begins with an examination of Robert Morales and Kyle Bakers’ 2004 graphic novel – Truth: Red, White and Black. Jennifer Ryan proposes in her article Truth Made Visible: Crises of Cultural Expression in Truth: Red, White, and Black that the graphic novel depicts a new version of the “great American hero” (Ryan, 67); an African American Captain America by the name of Isaiah Bradley. Truth tells Isaiah’s story, and contrasts his experience with that of the white Captain America (Ibid) – right down to their physical differences (see figure 1). Truth alters the traditional Captain America story, effectively rewriting Marvel comic lore (Ryan, 77). It does so by telling the story of how the super soldier serum that gave Captain America his powers was created; by being tested on Isaiah Bradley and other African American soldiers (Ryan, 67). Axel Alonso, lead editor of Truth, acknowledges that introducing a new character effectively destroys a previously unbroken and consistent existence for Captain America’s origin that allows the creators to “tell a larger story” (Ryan, 70).
Sharks are some of the most ancient species that have ever existed on the Earth, dating back over 400 million years; well before the time of the dinosaurs. There are around 500 distinct varieties of sharks and due to shark finning, some shark populations have decreased by approximately 90% . The diversity in sharks ranges from the breathtaking to the mundane to the downright eerie. Previously thought to be strictly saltwater animals, some species are also known to live in freshwater . Sharks are extra sensory animals and can detect the slightest changes in their environment. They can hear sounds inaudible to humans for over a mile, and can sense the smallest pressure changes around their bodies; both are key in a sharks hunting ability
With the rapid growth of technology in America’s society today, the use of computers in school classrooms has increased tremendously—an action that certainly has become beneficial to students, educators, and parents. The use of computers has positively skyrocketed over the past ten years. Not only are computers utilized daily in large companies across the world, but the everyday use in classrooms has also become prevalent. Using modern technology to assist school instructors with his or her daily lessons should definitely be regarded as a positive, acceptable method of instruction and not definitely does not prohibit students from understanding or critical thinking.
The main themes addressed in this article are the generational changes within the workforce, the advancements in the economy that are affecting the workplaces and the changes in the work ethic of employees.
The excessive work load we’ve become accustomed to here in America, coupled with an ever increasing amount of social change, has left the American middle class workforc...
The shark may once have been the top predator in the oceans, but Nature and natural selection have decided that that title now belongs to humans. We kill and eat sharks (by enjoying shark fin soup) just as we consume huge quantities of other fish and animals. Get over it!
The focus of this paper is to elaborate on the changing landscape of work in America during the twenty-first century. According to the researchers, as the economy continues to slowly recover from the recession and economic crisis, more of our baby boomers are reentering the workforce. In addition to the introduction of automation and computer technologies into the workplace, this has dramatically changed the nature of jobs for the older workers (Czaja and Sharit 2009). As stated in the Government Accountability Office in 2006, the number of workers over age 55 is projected to increase significantly over the next 20 years. Evidence shows that ageism, stereotypes, and misinformation about our older population continue to be major issues across
While technological innovations can provide increased opportunities for organizations and give them a competitive advantage, not all employees respond well to changes in their everyday workflow. When an organization updates its systems, it can face some resistance from employees, especially when the employees do not feel properly trained and lack the confidence in using the new system. Employees may grow frustrated and become less productive and efficient. In some extreme cases, technology can also replace some of their duties and make their positions obsolete, leaving them out of a job. This ties back to the need for job security. Technology has come a long way in the past 50 years and the types of challenges just mentioned are a lot more common in this day and age than they were before. Therefore, managers need to adapt to this changes in the work environment and find a way to satisfy their employees’ needs while increasing work performance and
Sharks are known as one of the most fearsome creatures that end innocent peoples' lives with no mercy, however, there is a large amount of information that civilians do not know about them. This year alone, sharks killed a total of twelve humans worldwide. On the contrary, this is compared to a killer amount of "100 million sharks that were killed this year by the actions of humans" ("Shark Finning"). In addition to these startling numbers, the killing of sharks actually damage our ecosystem just because of this known persona that all sharks are wicked and not help in any way towards the environment. There are quite a lot of positive factors and interesting facts about sharks that make them appealing towards learning more about these majestic creatures. Overall, it is important to feature interesting facts about sharks because of how society displays a stereotypical flaunt of sharks, yet there are respectably well factors of sharks and their input in the dark sea.
The computer evolution has been an amazing one. There have been astonishing achievements in the computer industry, which dates back almost 2000 years. The earliest existence of the computer dates back to the first century, but the electronic computer has only been around for over a half-century. Throughout the last 40 years computers have changed drastically. They have greatly impacted the American lifestyle. A computer can be found in nearly every business and one out of every two households (Hall, 156). Our Society relies critically on computers for almost all of their daily operations and processes. Only once in a lifetime will a new invention like the computer come about.
Technology can displace numerous examples of workers in service industries. Shop fronts such as banking, real estate, travel and many more, are disappearing. Small retail food outlets continue to collapse, with the growing supermarkets and food chains organized around computer technology, and on- line shopping from home. An even completely automated home-computerized service such as a hardware and software package called “Jeeves” is now available. Business management and company directors are finding voice activated lap top computer secretaries far more reliable and efficient than the human
Computers are forever present in the workplace. Word processors-computer software packages that simplify the creational and modification of documents-have largely replaced the typewriter. Electronic mail has made it easy to send messages worldwide via computer communication networks. Office automation has become the term for linking workstations, printers, database system, and other tools by means of a local-area network. An eventual goal of office automation has been termed the 'paperless office.' Although such changes ultimately make office work much more efficient, they have not been without cost in terms of purchasing and frequently upgrading the necessary hardware and software and of training workers to use the new technology.