#LabourMonth #Day7
A MOTHER’S WORDS TO YOUNG LABOUR.
Are you a mother or a father of
one or more? Are you troubled with the future of work that awaits them and
wonder what to tell them to prepare them for the future of work?
Here is what my close friend told
her two teenagers.
Mary is a computer scientist and
a single mother of two. She was disturbed about but yet enjoyed how her
required skill set at work changed almost every after 14 months yet for the
same role but for a higher pay. On the 9th time, she was enjoying
her flexibility and couldn’t keep the role to anyone else of telling her two teen
daughters Priscilla and Prosy what the future of work looked like. “May be I can write to them or tell their
school teacher to teach their entire class.” She thought. She wanted a proper
way that would not scare them about the future of work but rather give them
hope.
After two months of thinking, ideas
evolved and she seemed to come up with a refined idea.
On the morning of 13th
February, 2018, like anyone anticipates a tomorrow of rolling cake, bouncing
aroma of pizza, she felt that the following day was a better day than any other
and maybe she could win them for a cocktail date. That morning of 13th,
they woke up like any other day for school but to mum’s rare question. “Hello
my beautiful daughters, what careers take you to schools every morning.” Mary
Asked. “Of course I will be an accountant,” Priscilla said. “Why would I be an accountant
when I can be a marketer.” Prosy gave a stubborn dose of response.
It was clear to Mary about each
one’s preferred career paths but they sounded unware of the uncertainty in job
roles and the required flexibility in the skills sets. “Will both of you be my
valentine’s tomorrow so that we speak more about your career choices?” Mary
asked. “Priscilla and I will agree and respond by the fall of dusk today,”
Prosy promised.
That day was riddled with disappointments
from their boyfriends about the magic of 14th which left them with
no choice but agree to a date with their mum the following evening.
An evening at a quiet swimming
pool was a big deal. They seeped cocktail after cocktail and it seemed mum wasn’t
saying anything about career but how the month of March would be a wet one, how
it will be favourable to farmers and how she would do well in the fields with
rice.
As time came close to 10 pm to
leave for home, the future accountant and marketer in Priscilla and Prosy were
becoming more impatient. “Will you tell something about our careers mum?” Prosy
asked. Prosy was the inquisitive and principled one who always wondered why a
young pet should be in their house instead of being in the kennel or why they
watched TV on Sunday instead of doing bible study. “I will tell you as we drive
back home,” mum promised. “No. We shall not listen to you.” Prosy retorted.
“Okay Listen”.
“You must have heard about the
future of work where people will work alongside machines commonly known as
artificial augmentation. There are fears that this could lead to loss of jobs
but I want to give you hope that more jobs will be created than lost. But this
hope is only to those who are ready to adapt to more skill sets than mere job
roles. Especially skills that will deal with information. However, these skills
cannot be learned in the short while at college. They require that one learns
through their lifetime, continue to read. One must learn how to learn and be
adaptive because there is less predictively on how long a career of a set of
learnt skills will be relevant as different roles are being taken up by
machines. I think you start to prepare now.”
It was clear to Mary from their
facial lines that her daughters were hearing about this for the first time and may
be all this was looking like black panther magic told to pilgrims to keep them
strong.
“Will you tell us the skills we
need to learn?” Prosy Asked.
“I will tell each one of you one
skill today and the rest of the skills on Sunday morning before bible study.
For a future marketer, you will need to get accustomed with Search Engine Optimization,
business writing etc.” Mary said. “These have never been on the syllabus. Will
this happen by magic?” Prosy stack in wonderment.
“An accountant will need to learn
accounting engineering and learn more on how to relate technology to his or her
work.” Mary said. “I know you have more questions but it is getting late yet
you have to go to school tomorrow. We shall talk more about your careers on
Sunday. Thank you for being my Valentines.” She added.
Dear reader, I am tech optimistic
but I know that with the potential fourth industrial revolution, job roles are slowly
disappearing and being replaced with skill sets. Before you know it, you will
be irrelevant. The trick is simple, let your skills keep evolving.
Kansiime Onesmus
The writer is a writer.
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