READERS REPORT (27) HOW COMPUTERS CHANGED MY LIFE

READERS REPORT (27) 

How computers changed my love life

GERARD O'NEIL       Last updated 05:00 05/03/2015

Every generation witnesses the introduction of some new technology which radically changes the way they are destined to live their lives. For me this change was the advent of the computer.

When I began work as a junior clerk in a large government department in Wellington in 1980, workers didn't have computers. Instead, our desks had a tower of plastic file trays through which huge amounts of paper would circulate, it being the junior clerk's responsibility to keep the paper moving.

Soon after taking up my position I was issued with a little blue suitcase to be used to transport the paper around the building, between other governments departments and on occasions to the Minister's office in the Beehive. Providing you were carrying your little blue suitcase no one ever questioned what you were doing even if you had stopped off to drink a soft drink with your colleagues from some other government department who, like you, were carrying their own little suitcases.

After about a year I was promoted to the position of junior clerk on the top floor. This was the most sought-after position in the entire department, because you had almost unlimited access to the typing pool, and all the typists were young girls my age.

Access to the typing pool was strictly limited and controlled by an old matron-type head typist who, in another life was probably the head guard of some Russian labour camp in Siberia. Her desk was exactly in front of the door and no one set foot into the typing pool without her express permission. 

After a couple of months however, I noticed the head typist seemed to be mellowing a little in relation to me, and I thought I knew why. The head typist was a stickler for perfect ties, and I could tie one. It was not uncommon to find junior clerks in the bathroom with their little suitcases propped up on the sink desperately trying to adjust their ties and thus avoid retying them, with the help of the head typist, in front of the typing pool girls.

One day something very strange happened. When I went to hand over a document for typing, the head typist told me I could take it directly to the girl on table 32. Very sheepishly I made my way to her table, but couldn't help noticing the similes of the other typists as I passed by. When I eventually reached my destination, a very red-faced young typist took my document without a word.

From then on, every time I went to the typing pool, the head typist directed me to table 32. After about a month I spoke to my immediate boss about this and he laughed. "This means that the head typist has decided that you will marry the girl from table 32," he said. "When I was a junior clerk the head typist would always send me to the girl on table 45. We have been married now for seven years! "

I was just plucking up the courage to ask typist 32 her name, when Robert Muldoon made an announcement that probably changed my life forever. He said that in exchange for an extended lamb quota, the NZ Government was going to buy ICL computers from Britain.

A few weeks later the typing pool was divided in half to make way for a new computer room. Soon boxes of electronic components arrived and on each visit to the typing pool thereafter, I witnessed the technicians putting together a huge computer with large spinning magnetic tapes and flashing lights. Everything seemed too lead to a small screen and keyboard attached to a panel.

Then one morning I arrived in the typing pool to find it in complete silence. The girls were gone and their typewriters were piled up haphazardly in a corner. The head typist motioned for me to come into the computer room. With a great deal of sadness she explained how by typing on the keyboard and then pressing the print button on the computer she could make as many copies of a document as were requires in an instant. There was no need any more for her girls to individually type a document to make numerous original copies.

As the months went by PCs began to spout up on desks throughout the department and I found myself using my little blue suitcase less and less.

One day I was passing the old typing pool door when I thought I would stop and say hello to the head typist. The only person in the room was a technician. When I inquired about the head typist he informed me she had retired a couple of weeks previously as her services were no long required.

And the girl on table 32? I have no idea what happened to her as I had never plucked up the courage to ask her name. 

TO PRINT