| Recently I sat in a meeting that included members of | | | | learned about basic HTML coding, wikis, and blogs in |
| an organization's senior leaders and members of the | | | | the context of jobs. Second, I have met quite a few |
| administrative staff. The purpose of the meeting was | | | | recent graduates in high-level positions (particularly in |
| for an administrative assistant to present the results | | | | the nonprofit world), who are befuddled by digital |
| of a research project she had been assigned. The | | | | tasks as simple as creating a MySpace page. |
| research had been fruitful, and the staff member had | | | | What gives? My hypothesis is that technology |
| identified a long list of resources for the managers to | | | | threatens to eradicate one of the cornerstone social |
| consider. | | | | rewards of hierarchical workplaces: the right to |
| After the sincere thank yous, came the requests: | | | | command others to perform drudgery. |
| "Can you type up the links and send it to me in | | | | As a newly minted female college graduate in 1988, I |
| email?" one executive asked. | | | | did what many other women did: pretended not to |
| I said nothing but wondered why the Microsoft Word | | | | be able to type. To admit a typing skill, I feared, was |
| document, with links embedded, would not suffice. I | | | | to be relegated to clerical positions in those |
| also wondered why the executive wouldn't do what | | | | workplaces where computers had not made it to the |
| I would with information from the document that | | | | desk of every professional and manager. Now, as |
| was handed out - pick a source of interest and | | | | basic computing - especially email - has become a |
| Google it. | | | | necessity for upwardly mobile workers, the border |
| For many years, I accepted the oft-repeated | | | | line has moved. Everybody types now. However, in |
| "generation defense" at face value. After all, I am a | | | | environments that are not explicitly technical, lack of |
| cusp baby, a Gen-Xer: The year I entered Stanford | | | | familiarity with one's computer has become a status |
| was the first year that Macintosh computers were | | | | symbol. |
| made available to all students in the library. I bid the | | | | Managers navigating the alleged Boomer, Gen-X, |
| typewriter good riddance with no regrets, but | | | | Gen-Y rifts: Raise the bar on technology. There is |
| sympathized when people ten or twenty years my | | | | really no excuse for allowing capable, senior-level |
| senior cried confusion over computer technology. | | | | workers to offload to recent college graduates tasks |
| Two observations have eroded my sympathy. First, I | | | | like Google searches and resizing images in |
| have been forced up to speed in a variety of | | | | documents, or to refuse to use the intranet. That will |
| applications that did not exist when I was younger. I | | | | do a lot to increase the sense of equity. |