Before globalization and the Internet, even supposedly stress filled industries like advertising moved at a much more leisurely pace. I can recall that a busy day for me used to be scribbling an idea for a 30 second television commercial on a yellow pad and handing it to a typing secretary. That was it. By the time the finished copy came back from proofreading and legal, it was usually a week later. Everyone had an assistant back then. Even the assistants had their own assistants.
I'm amused when I listen to all the pundits on TV talking about the employment crisis and wondering why more people don't have jobs. I can tell you why not enough people have jobs these days. It's a no-brainer. The people who are still working are doing the work of five people. Companies stay competitive by figuring out how to use fewer people to do more stuff. That's the "productivity" we keep hearing about. If we went back to the days when everyone had an assistant, we could be at full employment in no time. Of course, whatever we were making or selling would be so expensive that nobody would buy it.
The combination of a global economy where there is always somebody out there who thinks two dollars a day is a living wage, and the Internet, where all desires are gratified instantly, has killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The only way I even have a prayer of staying competitive is to continually look for new ways to do things faster and cheaper. It's not fun. Like it or not, we're in a downward spiral that won't end until wages have equalized around the world. I don't think my parent's generation realized just how good they had it. Sure, they didn't have computers and iPhones, but they didn't need them either.
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