For Those of You Pining for Job Security
Years ago, it wasn't all that unusual for someone to work for one company his whole life. You might not get rich, but you had something you hardly hear of anymore: job security.
It was, quite literally, a different world. The U.S. had won World War II; American business was the main economic engine of the so-called "Free World." From 1945 through the 1960s, our country's economy grew as did many of its great businesses. Even after two severe recessions in the early 1970s and early 1980s, the vibrant U.S. economy led the world. As a result, those who worked in America's manufacturing companies, especially when they belonged to a union, held secure jpbs.
But even during the 70s and 80s, things had begun to change. Technology, driven by exponentially more powerful computers, slowly and steadily allowed machines to perform tasks that once required a human beings. Just as the efficient and powerful machines of the industrial revolution turned the man with a strong back and arms into a dinosaur, so the unfolding tech revolution would substitute computer programs for the human brain.
The gradual loss of job security, a painful process for many, finds many of us struggling to keep up with the new skills required in our digital age. But if you pine for the "old days" of job security, think of it this way: Sometimes job security led to complacency. And complacency can be lethal to the person.
Here's more literary description of what can happen if we focus too much on security. It's a passage from The Father's Tale by Michael O'Brien. (Previous posts about this wonderful book HERE and HERE.) Alex, our protagonist, owns a book store, tends to be shy and keep to himself. His insular world provides a certain sense of security. But he recognizes the danger of keeping to himself turning into closing in on himself. And so he returns to those walks on the high moors he once enjoyed so much as a boy:
It was, quite literally, a different world. The U.S. had won World War II; American business was the main economic engine of the so-called "Free World." From 1945 through the 1960s, our country's economy grew as did many of its great businesses. Even after two severe recessions in the early 1970s and early 1980s, the vibrant U.S. economy led the world. As a result, those who worked in America's manufacturing companies, especially when they belonged to a union, held secure jpbs.
But even during the 70s and 80s, things had begun to change. Technology, driven by exponentially more powerful computers, slowly and steadily allowed machines to perform tasks that once required a human beings. Just as the efficient and powerful machines of the industrial revolution turned the man with a strong back and arms into a dinosaur, so the unfolding tech revolution would substitute computer programs for the human brain.
The gradual loss of job security, a painful process for many, finds many of us struggling to keep up with the new skills required in our digital age. But if you pine for the "old days" of job security, think of it this way: Sometimes job security led to complacency. And complacency can be lethal to the person.
Here's more literary description of what can happen if we focus too much on security. It's a passage from The Father's Tale by Michael O'Brien. (Previous posts about this wonderful book HERE and HERE.) Alex, our protagonist, owns a book store, tends to be shy and keep to himself. His insular world provides a certain sense of security. But he recognizes the danger of keeping to himself turning into closing in on himself. And so he returns to those walks on the high moors he once enjoyed so much as a boy:
Alex was not so enclosed within himself that he presumed upon any kind of absolute security. He knew that a guarded existence, even the apparent serenity of a bibliophile's life, was no sure defense. You must remain flexible, he told himself, to a degree - as much as you can. He new that if he did not, he could easily atrophy in middle age, shring, shrivel, and calcify into a gnome in a Dickensian shop. Become the old curiosity itself. If, instead, he walked abroad upon his own familiar high moors, he would see vast landscapes and keep muscles and heart and mind alive to the possibilities in an infinitely large and surprising universe.Working for a living has always had its challenges. We may not have job security anymore, but maybe it's not the worse thing in the world, if we remain open to the "possibilities in an infinitely large and surprising universe."
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