A mother’s words to young labour

#LabourMonth #Day7

A MOTHER’S WORDS TO YOUNG LABOUR.

kansmus@gmail.com

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 9^th 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 13^th 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 13^th, 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 14^th 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.