[WalterBright]

My mom typed my dad's book manuscript over and over and over again. Even a simple computer revolutionized that inhumane practice.

When I worked at Boeing circa 1981, I was expected to write documents out longhand and then hand it to the secretary pool to type. Screw that. I invaded the word processing room, a windowless room with about 20 women working on Wang word processors, with a supervisor facing them. With all the charm I could muster, I talked the supervisor into letting me use one. She warned me that it was very difficult to learn, and I must take a 2 week Wang course beforehand. I said nah, just gimme the manual, and I was using it in 5 minutes (she was horrified by that).

[JasonFruit]

I'm not sure they appreciated you demonstrating their superfluity, even if you believed it was for their own good. I was once or twice in my career surprised by such ingratitude before I realized that some jobs continue as both soft charity and a means of inflating managerial importance under a polite fiction of usefulness.

[WalterBright]

Appreciated? They didn't like it at all. It didn't matter what I did, their fiefdom relied on people being afraid of computers and not realizing how simple word processors were. That could not possibly last, and it didn't.

[JasonFruit]

I see. I thought you extended "inhumane practice" to the secretarial pool. What I don't understand is why people were afraid of typewriters before they were afraid of word processors and computers. They're frankly not that threatening.