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Driven to extremes

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Photo credit, Why Kei, whykei. Unsplash license.

From time to time in this space I’ve announced exciting new developments in my employment history. I’m afraid I may have bragged a little, boasting about translation jobs and books (self-) published.

Today I must humble myself, as is appropriate in Lent. My delusions of grandeur are past. My pomp has taken physic. I have signed up to drive for Uber Eats.

I complained of my financial challenges to the guys in my Bible study, and one of them kept urging me to try UE. “You can work when you want,” he says, “and pick your jobs.” Also, you don’t need a very nice car, like an Uber driver, which matters in my case.

So I did it. My understanding was that the vetting process would take a few days, but I got approved in one. I was not prepared for this; I figured I’d have more time to summon up my blood and play the tiger. However, the YouTube videos I’ve been watching suggest that you really ought to have a hot bag to keep your orders warm (or cold), and my order for one of those won’t show up till Thursday. So I’ll hold off till then.

On Thursday, I’ll probably come up with another excuse for delay. I am, to say the least, a timid driver.

The great joke of it has not escaped me – I lost my translating gig due to Artificial Intelligence, and this job is likely to go the same way. Even as I write (according to news reports), Uber is testing out self-driving delivery vehicles.

I suppose we all wonder where this will end. What job is safe from our digital overlords? I’m convinced that AI will never do creative work to match human art. But what it can do is work cheap. It’s the ultimate illegal immigrant, undercutting wages for the natives.

But if nobody has a job anymore, who’s going to buy all those cheap products? And how will mere humans subsist?

Perhaps after the Great Revolution, every human will be assigned a personal robot. That robot will do the human’s work, and the human will be paid for it, being legally responsible for the maintenance of the machine.

But what will we do with our spare time, then? Judging by our current behavior in the first stages of AI, I’m not optimistic.

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Redundant

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If you’re one of the multitudes who follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed my post last night in which I asked for prayer, over a personal matter I did not reveal.

This blog post is to explain my situation.

I lost my job yesterday (Monday). I wasn’t told to pack up my stuff and get out; my job ends at the end of the month, and I have the option of working four more months (half time), or two months (full time).

But my present job will no longer exist.

This is due to altered circumstances, circumstances that have changed radically in the roughly five years since I started graduate school. At that time our accrediting agency demanded that a school must have a full-time librarian with a master’s degree.

Since then, the market value of a degreed librarian has fallen pretty steeply. Today the agency only asks that there be a librarian with an MLS somewhere around the place, occasionally. The operation of the library is assumed to be largely automated. Books themselves have become secondary to electronic services, which are the domain of IT people.

Bottom line: A fair amount of money (I won’t say a lot) can be saved by cutting the position of Librarian. I’m not entirely sure how they plan to get the actual physical work done – accessioning and processing, etc. – after I’m gone. But it’s no longer my problem.

I have small hopes of finding another job in the library field. What happened to me is happening everywhere. The few jobs that remain in the field are probably too technical for me.

So if you know of any copywriting jobs, or any openings for Norwegian-to-English translators, or publishers looking for sophisticated Christian fantasy, or anything else I might be adequate at, please let me know.

And pray for me. Thanks.