Many many years ago, I started a job as a computer programmer. Computers were new and sexy. I had just graduated in mathematics and the belief was that the skills needed to do hard sums and program computers were likely to be very similar. When the subject of my career came up with friends of my parents, the most likely question was “what’s a computer and what does it do?”; by comparison in less than twenty years the most common question had become “ah, you’re in computers, can you help me making Windows work?”. But I get ahead of myself.
Whatever else school, university and other sorts of education prepare you for, having a job is not one of them. They prepare you for learning things, so spending six weeks on courses and another two weeks in seminars worked fine. Four weeks were spent on vacation (bank holidays and the compulsory two weeks off) and a week went on sick leave. Wow, that was thirteen weeks gone - a quarter of the first year taken up - and not a day’s “work” done.
On those days that I actually went to work, I had a desk in an open office. With a telephone on it. But for internal calls only. No PC, no mobile, no internet, no blackberry, no iPod; this should have been a really productive workplace; there was even an ashtray, so no need to clutter up the marble building entrance with furtive looking employees dragging on fags and throwing down a carpet of dog ends for distinguished visitors. There wasn’t even a coffee machine, a lady came round twice a day pushing a trolley on which were sandwiches, chocolate bars, a real cake with a knife to cut it and real plates, hot water from which tea and coffee were made on the spot and cold drinks. Not possible today of course, as the elfin safety people would insist that the hot water, knives and plates are all safety hazards and pushing a trolley likely to lead to severe industrial injury. Oh, and anything not wrapped in plastic and stored behind glass would be a salmonella risk. But the point I really wanted to make was that queuing up, deciding what to drink, what snack to gorge and to have a chat with like beveraged and nicotined colleagues zapped another half hour.
I actually wrote computer programs in a special language (known as code), in pencil, on paper forms printed for the purpose. The handwritten code would then be sent off to be converted into punched cards, which the computer could read. My handwriting is not of the best so numerous corrections were necessary before a “clean” deck of punched card was available. This process of correction and re-correction took about an hour a day.
Like most human endeavours, a hierarchy of roles and jobs developed in what was to become the IT industry. Near the bottom were the key-punch operators, those who took the various forms with hand-writing on them and converted said hand-written forms to machine readable cards. Next were computer operators, lowly individuals whose role was to obey the machines’ exacting commands with the minimum of fuss and delay. Above them (or so they thought) came the programmers, and at the top of the food chain were systems analysts. Systems analysts talked to those who would use future computer systems, divined what they would need to do and then wrote that down into specifications of computer programs.
Understanding what the analyst really meant and wanted took up about half a day a week.
I should have mentioned management. Reading management directives, going to communication meetings, writing reports for management again took up half a day a week.
There were a whole variety of liaison activities such as talking to other departments about what a wonderful thing this new fangled machine was, talking to the supplier (IBM) of the monster, discussing difficult problems with colleagues all of which again gook up about half a day a week.
You can see where all this is leading. About three days a week were left for doing the work for which I was nominally employed. A few minutes with a calculator will convince you that in the first year only 45% of my so-called work time could have been spent writing programs.
Now start to add additional responsibilities, like team leader, expert in something or other and the actual time spent on real work continues to drop.
All of that is not confined to any one profession. How much of a doctor’s time is spent healing the sick and how much organizing the surgery, managing the receptionists, filling in forms for the NHS and so on?
What does this mean then for you, a new and fledgling professional? In all probability, you’ll spend less than half your working life professionalling (and I know that word doesn’t exist, I just liked the sound of it), the rest will be liaising, reaching out, discussing with colleagues, writing papers, advertising and selling yourself, keeping up to date, managing the office and generally trying to get rid of the essential administrivia that any job brings with it.
The trick is to get someone else, that you trust, to sweep as much of the s**t up as possible. Better still, get a computer to do it for you.
Whatever else school, university and other sorts of education prepare you for, having a job is not one of them. They prepare you for learning things, so spending six weeks on courses and another two weeks in seminars worked fine. Four weeks were spent on vacation (bank holidays and the compulsory two weeks off) and a week went on sick leave. Wow, that was thirteen weeks gone - a quarter of the first year taken up - and not a day’s “work” done.
On those days that I actually went to work, I had a desk in an open office. With a telephone on it. But for internal calls only. No PC, no mobile, no internet, no blackberry, no iPod; this should have been a really productive workplace; there was even an ashtray, so no need to clutter up the marble building entrance with furtive looking employees dragging on fags and throwing down a carpet of dog ends for distinguished visitors. There wasn’t even a coffee machine, a lady came round twice a day pushing a trolley on which were sandwiches, chocolate bars, a real cake with a knife to cut it and real plates, hot water from which tea and coffee were made on the spot and cold drinks. Not possible today of course, as the elfin safety people would insist that the hot water, knives and plates are all safety hazards and pushing a trolley likely to lead to severe industrial injury. Oh, and anything not wrapped in plastic and stored behind glass would be a salmonella risk. But the point I really wanted to make was that queuing up, deciding what to drink, what snack to gorge and to have a chat with like beveraged and nicotined colleagues zapped another half hour.
I actually wrote computer programs in a special language (known as code), in pencil, on paper forms printed for the purpose. The handwritten code would then be sent off to be converted into punched cards, which the computer could read. My handwriting is not of the best so numerous corrections were necessary before a “clean” deck of punched card was available. This process of correction and re-correction took about an hour a day.
Like most human endeavours, a hierarchy of roles and jobs developed in what was to become the IT industry. Near the bottom were the key-punch operators, those who took the various forms with hand-writing on them and converted said hand-written forms to machine readable cards. Next were computer operators, lowly individuals whose role was to obey the machines’ exacting commands with the minimum of fuss and delay. Above them (or so they thought) came the programmers, and at the top of the food chain were systems analysts. Systems analysts talked to those who would use future computer systems, divined what they would need to do and then wrote that down into specifications of computer programs.
Understanding what the analyst really meant and wanted took up about half a day a week.
I should have mentioned management. Reading management directives, going to communication meetings, writing reports for management again took up half a day a week.
There were a whole variety of liaison activities such as talking to other departments about what a wonderful thing this new fangled machine was, talking to the supplier (IBM) of the monster, discussing difficult problems with colleagues all of which again gook up about half a day a week.
You can see where all this is leading. About three days a week were left for doing the work for which I was nominally employed. A few minutes with a calculator will convince you that in the first year only 45% of my so-called work time could have been spent writing programs.
Now start to add additional responsibilities, like team leader, expert in something or other and the actual time spent on real work continues to drop.
All of that is not confined to any one profession. How much of a doctor’s time is spent healing the sick and how much organizing the surgery, managing the receptionists, filling in forms for the NHS and so on?
What does this mean then for you, a new and fledgling professional? In all probability, you’ll spend less than half your working life professionalling (and I know that word doesn’t exist, I just liked the sound of it), the rest will be liaising, reaching out, discussing with colleagues, writing papers, advertising and selling yourself, keeping up to date, managing the office and generally trying to get rid of the essential administrivia that any job brings with it.
The trick is to get someone else, that you trust, to sweep as much of the s**t up as possible. Better still, get a computer to do it for you.
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