Just a thought... as mostly fairly well experienced individuals... what would you do if you saw that your entire field of career choice was becoming obsolete?

Ayn Rand touches on the concepts of government protection of workers facing this a bit in her book Anthem... where a young scientific minded individual is chastised by a government science board for inventing the electric lightbulb, because of the damage it will do to the people who's job it is to make candles, then they go on to explain how long it took them to approve candles because of the thread to the previous generation of torch makers. Hers is mostly a mockery of the idea of impeding advancements in technological improvements so as to preserve these individuals' livelihoods, and has been seen to happen on multiple occasions in practice with unions fighting more reliable and efficient automated systems. But there is also a human factor there she doesn't hit... the idea that we shouldn't be quite so rigid in our "this is what i do, and i've been doing it so long there's nothing else I CAN do" mentalities.

Like I described above, in the real world we frequently face this with mechanization/automation systems. And it's much the same gap. A welder won't necessarily be able to transition into maintaining/utilizing a welding robot, nor will as many of them be needed even if they could. And as technology advances, so does the speed at which this happens.

Personally I'd like to think I'm adaptive enough that I'd find a way to take any of my other interests and work a career out of it. But it would surely take a bit of training and involve starting out at the entry level again, throwing away years and years of seniority and income increases in the process. It would by no means be an easy transition. Should the industries that put my industry out o business somehow be partially obligated to shoulder this transition time? Should I be in part to blame for not having become more multidisciplinary?

OrangeDragon wrote:Just a thought... as mostly fairly well experienced individuals... what would you do if you saw that your entire field of career choice was becoming obsolete?

Impossible for me. I sell and repair top hats and we all know those will never go out of style.



But if somehow that occupation becomes obsolete, I can always go back to upholstering private rail coaches.

Soi Dog wrote:

OrangeDragon wrote:Just a thought... as mostly fairly well experienced individuals... what would you do if you saw that your entire field of career choice was becoming obsolete?

Impossible for me. I sell and repair very tall top hats and we all know those will never go out of style.

Actually, I hear decapitation is about the be the latest fad. MenMac says it's all the rage where he is lately... I expect it to catch on globally. Not much call for hats when you lack a head to rest one on.

^^Sushi!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_meat

What if they built a railway system from PP to the port, then what would happen to the truck drivers & undertakers

OrangeDragon wrote:Just a thought... as mostly fairly well experienced individuals... what would you do if you saw that your entire field of career choice was becoming obsolete?...

Been there done that.

Wasn't really my field of choice, but it was my field of expertise and my career. I am (was) and expert on micrographics, in particular COM (computer output micrographics) for high security situations. Was one of the top guys in the country back in the day. But the development of various forms of mass storage on computers killed it. I got out just before it really started to die, went back to school to study something I actually rather preferred, and then after finishing my grad work, started working in something completely unrelated to my training, and ultimately did well with it. It never occurred to me to do like the millennials and whine and blame and try to get somebody else to pay for it. Things change. That you can count on. Adapt or die.

LTO wrote:

OrangeDragon wrote:Just a thought... as mostly fairly well experienced individuals... what would you do if you saw that your entire field of career choice was becoming obsolete?...

Been there done that.

Wasn't really my field of choice, but it was my field of expertise and my career. I am (was) and expert on micrographics, in particular COM (computer output micrographics) for high security situations. Was one of the top guys in the country back in the day. But the development of various forms of mass storage on computers killed it. I got out just before it really started to die, went back to school to study something I actually rather preferred, and then after finishing my grad work, started working in something completely unrelated to my training, and ultimately did well with it. It never occurred to me to do like the millennials and whine and blame and try to get somebody else to pay for it. Things change. That you can count on. Adapt or die.

Interesting, I can't say I've ever met someone who's made a full on career switch like that before. So what was the experience like going from a seasoned vet in career 1 to a green newbie in career 2? Both psychologically and economically.

Aside: Surprisingly enough there are still COM systems in use today. Few... but some. I'm sure it has taken on a whole new face since you worked with it (and then even later, when the dinosaurs died and man discovered fire ).

Economically devastating. I could have stayed longer, perhaps evolved into a different field, but instead I took it as a sign of sorts, as an opportunity, and quit to pursue a new path. At 30 I went from having $300 dinners with friends to trying to eat and pay rent for a month on $300. From a fat full bank account to less than zero. Psychologically I found it exhilarating, exciting, certainly stressful but full of dreams and potential and imagined opportunity. Threw away all my credit cards, burned my neckties in an act of drunken defiance, moved across the country, took up mountain climbing and invested the next few years studying esoteric subjects I loved, that cost a lot of money (which got paid for primarily through work as a GTF) and held only a small chance of providing a fair return. Still, I was confident that I was good enough that I could find good work if I really tried. But I never really tried. In the process of toying with some of my newly learned skills, an unexpected opportunity presented itself, so I combined all my skills from my various jobs and studies - computers, writing, research, business management, etc - and the last little money I had to start a business in something in which I had no specific experience or formal training, and slowly built it into a profitable endeavor.

some frightening and inspirational testimonies here.

i feel like a noob on the precipice of success/failure.