andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Au contraire, computerization is increasing the intellectual demands of the jobs of auto mechanics, auto workers, etc. My friends and comrades who work the line have all had to learn computer systems, programming, electronic repair, etc.; my auto mechanic says it's hard to find good people because a good mechanic needs to know computers now, not just mechanical systems.
O.K. The trend has then not reached its full development. I believe computerization _usually_ at first proceeds as you have described it here, but then moves (more or less steadily) towards the condition I falsely assumed auto mechanics had reached. But in any case I believe we are in agreement that though the proportion varies, there is no occupation, probably in the nature of things cannot be an occupation, that makes no intellectual demands whatever on the worker, reducing her to (simply) a "cog." "Cog in the machine" in reference to persons is a useful metaphor but never empirically correct.
Jan works on WebSphere (sp?) at State Farm. Don't ask me what that is, it's merely vital to almost every employee and agent at State Farm that it operate properly. And it continuallly fails to operate properly and thus requires highly skilled baby sitting. That level of skill IS however, after only a few years, detectably decreasing. I don't know how far it has to decrease before we can speak of the job as (roughly) "deskilled."
Carrol