WORK

Monday, May 19, 2008

A PERSPECTIVE OF WORK
Welcome To My Front Porch. Today I invite you to join me in a series of discussions on work. Work is a major part of life. In one way or another we are always working. For some, getting up in the morning is work, cleaning house, gardening, washing the car, doing dishes, watching the kids are all forms of work... Whenever you’re expending energy, its work. In our discussion, I would like to concentrate on work for compensation. You can call it a job, profession, or just something you get paid to do.Work has taken many forms over the centuries. Agriculture was the earliest form of work. It was a necessity, you need food to survive. Man was always looking for ways to make work easy. So they learned to develop and invent tools to do more and work less. The wheel was the most important invention to change how man works. It created a means to move things. We now look at a wheel and take it for granted, but just imagine the role it plays in everything we do. Originally man had to do everything by himself: hunt, fish, make tools, utensils, cut down trees, and build his home, plant crops, raise livestock and much more. Eventually man began to specialize and sell his services. He opened stores selling food, seeds, clothes, tools. This saved time, and man had more time to raise crops and tend to livestock. Water at one time was the fastest and easiest way to move goods .Overland transportation opened new avenues to ship and receive goods. This opened new markets and the wants and needs of people changed. They were no longer self dependent. As demand for items increased man found he needed to produce more and faster. This led to the industrial revolution and mass production. The assembly line was started and workers came from the farms and foreign lands to fill the labor demands of new and emerging factories. This marked the change in how we work. It was a steady progression to improve work and what and how we do things...Over the years we have seen the change from agriculture, to the industrial revolution, to automation and technical change. Automation was to replace man with machines. It changed the assembly line and meant new skills were needed to control and produce goods. It was no longer manual labor and repetitive skills, but decision skills were added to run and operate machines. Technology has transformed work to the point that little or no manual labor is needed today. We have progressed from the earliest forms of computers to the smallest hand held devices. We have gone from rooms of unit record cards and computer tapes to unbelievable amounts of data being stored on devices no bigger than a pin head. We once needed large numbers of worker to collect and process data, today we have transitioned to fewer and more skilled workers to replace the unnecessary repetition of work. Technology has eliminated repetition and steps in the work process. We have been transformed into a service based society. We no longer concentrate on producing goods but managing and operating the machines and systems that once required large numbers of workers. Through inventions, innovations and modern transportation we are no longer isolated from the world. We have become a global society with global markets. Much of the work once performed in the United States is now performed overseas. This has created a need to look at work in a different perspective.The variety of work and how it is performed has changed. Factories and offices have become automated, machinery to harvest crops is bigger and faster, our homes are equipped with all kinds of gadgets requiring maintenance and repair, health care provides elaborate testing and procedures to keep us healthy, the military uses high tech equipment to protect and keep us safe, modern technology and engineering has put men on the moon. We’ve come along way from the horse and buggy days. The advances in the past 100 years have outstripped the advances of centuries of inventions and work. We’ve built on the past and into a whirlwind change to our culture and society. We now live longer, look younger, are more mobile, better educated and informed.The question becomes; how do we fit into this new and changing world? Years back it was clear, you worked on the farm or factory. Today the opportunities and options are unlimited. Next week let’s take a look at these opportunities and options to determine how we can best fit into this new world of work.Your Neighbor on the Front PorchSasiad
Posted by FROM THE FRONT PORCH at 11:53 AM

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