Susan's Scribblings the Blog

I’m old enough to remember when high schools held typing classes. The business education room consisted of row after row of desks with huge and heavy IBM Selectric (R) typewriters perched on top. They were metal and weighed between 30 and 50 pounds, which was a task suited more to the maintenance workers (no IT back then) than the young women like me to try and move around. Even sliding one on the desk was a challenge.

The machines came in colors such as blue, black and red, with stationary keys embedded in the top and a “golf ball” style interchangeable font device which snapped in place. The design meant no sideways moving parts, which was a miracle of modern technology then. Other typewriters had a platen or cylinder which moved from right to left as the typist completed each line and required a manual shift up to the next line of type and a return to the right. The type ball/golf ball instead moved internally from left to right and positioned itself to imprint the characters on the page as the keys were pressed, striking the inked ribbon in front of the paper inside.

Anybody from GenX or younger is probably aware that their mouths are stuck open right about now.

Young high school women trained in basic typing skills, and we had contests for speed and accuracy. Our grade system gave an A to speeds of 60 words per minute or better. Rumor had it that a nearby high school only required 50 words per minute. By the time I was 20, I had graduated to over 90, thanks in no small part to my high school typing class, and the high bar they set.

So why did we take typing classes? We were anticipating working in administrative roles such as secretaries or clerks, which required typing letters, meeting notes and corporate materials. IBM had cornered three quarters of the business market by the 1980s, so we were graduating with an almost guaranteed skill we could use right away.

Of course, clerical and secretarial positions in the workplace are not what they used to be. 96 percent of administrative assistants (the modern job title) are still women, but typing has moved from navigating those toddler-weight behemoths to computers one can carry in a hand. Children in elementary school learn basic keyboarding. The role of the woman professionally dressed in a blouse and skirt clicking away is nearly gone.

Why do I bring this up?

I was recently tasked at work with taking customer calls to back up a growing queue during severe weather. One of the incoming call options enabled the customer to receive a callback based on their place in the queue, so they wouldn’t need to hold. In the time many people spend what they consider an annoying amount of time on hold, they might have typed 90 words per minute. Or won a round of the latest video game.

As I was taking one of these incoming callbacks, I received a voice message asking me to identify myself for the person whom I was calling.

The person’s phone was the secretary, without the front desk, typewriter or keyboard. The device was screening its user’s calls so they could accept or reject me. A few calls came through like that. One even acknowledged my name when relaying the message, which I found slightly creepy.

All those years of perfecting my typing skills so I could sit at a desk and interact with people, replaced by a digital entity.

Makes me regret never having bought an IBM typewriter.