Computer and self-service

Joan Greenbaum's Windows on the Workplace has changed my perspective on how I see the effects of technological advances plus management objectives to workers. I used to think that technology made our life easier, saving time and costs as well as producing more quality products. This is the fact that is undeniable. However, technological advances also bring negative effects to the workers. Greenbaum's book is practically related to all three stories that Prof Perry put in the CRS sections and all the stories are different from each other but giving almost the same consequences. In the first story, computer kiosks are replacing the common ticket counters as to reduce ticket lines. If we look this from the positive side, several problems that always occur in the airport such as the delay of the flight due to the never-ending ticket lines and help with the regular issues of lifting plenty of bags could be avoided as the customers now need to check-in and lifting their luggage on their own. On the other hand, the cell phone check-in in the second story provides a new option for the passengers to buy airline tickets. All they need to do is just sending a text message to any airlines and then, they will receive a message that containing a barcode immediately, which is exactly the same as the barcode on the airline tickets. The second story is roughly the same as the third story, which is the latest way to order pizza by using text messaging. This helps to lower the waiting time to order pizza. Despite of all the positive effects, the manager tends to eliminate a number of workers as their jobs are being replaced by machines and computers. The technological advances have re-engineered the jobs so that the work becomes deskilled and divided up. In addition, the wages of the workers become lesser because their jobs have become less skilled due to the replacement with technological advances. If technology keeps replacing human's horsepower, what are the jobs that will left for us in the next few years?