Serendipity in Automation

Not all things are improved by automation. But I know that I am in a profession that is inching toward obsolescence (or being pushed toward transformation) by increasingly smarter machines.  Right now Alexa, Siri, or Google’s AI can do about 20% of my job better than I can, because they have rapid access to a wider store of information (and they don’t get bored or irked when answering the same routine question repeatedly).

But for now I still have the human edge, I can intuit and extrapolate.  I can weigh intangibles in the value of my sources.  How quickly and adeptly does the author get to the point?  How well do they answer the implied questions?  And I can create content, build bridges to understanding, and provide clarity in the way I answer.

I think people are really only limited by their (un)willingness to keep learning.  Change is unsettling.  Growth is hard.  Adapting is exhausting.  But if you can learn to be excited about new ideas and information I think you sleep better at night.  I’m not going to allow myself to avoid the future.

Hal 9000
I’m afraid I don’t know where the bathrooms are, Dave.

 

 

Star signs and visits to church!

Good news!
Tom has a new job. He’ll be working as the Distribution Coordinator for our weekly entertainment/local interest paper. It’s called Up and Coming Weekly (such an appropriate name if you REALLY know Tom ;P ) This came through over the past week. We saw the ad on Saturday or Sunday, called the place Monday, faxed off the resume Monday, they called him Tuesday, had the interview Wednesday, they offered the job on Wednesday, he left AIT Wednesday and started this morning (Thursday). Whew!
On the plus side, it’s an 8:30 – 5 job, no weekends. The salary they are offering is a bit more than he was making at AIT. No phones and evil computers, and apparently folks there are pretty friendly.
On the minus side, not much. It bolloxes up my schedule a lot less than the 2nd shift job did and he’s going to need to use the car for work a few days a week. The actual work is a bit of a mystery still, and he’s going to be riding herd on a bunch of one-day a week contractors, that could get messy.
In all, we’re considering it to be a good move.
There’s no way to know why things happen (in a cosmic sense), but I think it might have helped that we went to a nice pre-x-mas service at our friends’ church on Sunday last. I know we have both been praying for this kind of break. Although, Tom’s horoscope in the same paper he’s now working for said that the New Moon in his 10th house makes this the right time for job changes…go figure.
Sometimes the stars do come into alignment!