With marriage and motherhood, twenty-five years passed before I returned to corporate America. Since my son had moved to California to pursue his dreams and my daughter was working full time, I decided to reenter the world of typing, dictation and interoffice memos. My first pleasant surprise was that no one takes dictation anymore. Where once a steno pad and pencil were near permanent appendages, now a Dictaphone was a welcome replacement. Better still, as a manager, I composed my own letters and had someone else mail them. I did not miss the shorthand hieroglyphics or the arthritic cramp in my fingers. On the other hand, taking dictation leads to a more personal relationship with one's employer. There is an air of intimacy to sitting across a desk, scribbling furiously, while crossing your legs from side to side and yanking on the hem of your skirt to keep it from riding up.
In the modern office, the interoffice memo has been replaced by the "forever come back to haunt you" e-mail. When carbon paper was still leaving smudges on your fingers, it was easy to retrieve a letter or memorandum that was, perhaps, written in haste. Should the offending correspondence already have been picked up by the mail room clerk (gone like the dodo bird), a secretary, uh, administrative assistant, would chase him down and remove the manila bound missive from his cart. If the envelope had already been delivered, the AA support network would get it back before it was opened and read. With e-mails, there are no reprieves. Once you push the Send Now button, the die is cast. Even if you were able to sneak into the addressee's office and delete the letter before he/she saw it, some computer genius would find a way to resurrect it and send the author to the grave. With e-mail, correspondence is never completely gone or forgotten.
For word processing, the computer is far superior to a typewriter, easily beating the renowned IBM Selectric. When the IBM Communicating Mag Card typewriter was introduced in the 1971, corporations took their first step into the future as we know it now. This invention allowed similar typewriters separated by thousands of miles to send information to each other over voice-grade telephone lines. However, no matter how great the Selectric was then, it was no better than a chisel and stone compared with today's computers. PCs speed our way through setup, spell checking, filing and printing, saving countless hours and eliminating the added cost of whiteout supplies and correction tape. During down times, the computer also serves as a means of entertainment. No more hanging around the water cooler; now everyone is glued to the internet. Don't tell but I am addicted to Addiction Solitaire.Try playing that on a typewriter!
The internet is a tremendous boon to business. Research no longer entails hours in legal and business libraries. A few words typed into a search engine, and you are traveling the information highway like an Indy 500 driver. The amount of data available on any subject is overwhelming. Whether your need is a recent Supreme Court decision or the location of the best Mexican restaurant in town, the world wide web can get the information for you in a jiff.
The one thing that has not changed is gossip. I have switched management jobs a few times over the last few years, but at every new company, it seems the person I am replacing is the same one I replaced before. For the first few days, the outgoing GM remains on site to teach me all I need to know to perform my job efficiently. He/she takes the time to show me all the little extras, such as where supplies are kept, which bathroom is most convenient and which pot is always filled with fresh coffee. He/she also goes out of their way to tell me who is having an affair with whom, which manager is disliked by what employees and who is not to be trusted. Instead of being disturbed by the lack of professionalism, I find it strangely comforting.
Whether twenty-five years or twenty-five days have passed, it makes no difference. In the corporate world, time stands still.