How has technology changed your…?

The original question was how has technology changed your job, except as technology hasn’t just changed the world of work but how we live and interact with each other, I thought I’d widen the brief.

Nevertheless, starting with the world of work…

For some, technology made their jobs better, removing dull repetitive tasks, allowing increased time for more interesting aspects, and to develop their role. On the other side of the coin were those staff caught in the middle, forced to pivot, re-train, and find new jobs in a shrinking workplace as, in the business world, technological advances are welcomed because they allow for a reduction in staff costs. While there may have been excess in previous systems, like any form of wholesale cost cutting, unseen value gets lost too.

In the UK (and I suspect other parts of the first world), large organisations sign up to national/international standards of service. In a past life, I was on a team putting together the procedures required to meet this membership. How surprised was I to discover those procedures weren’t focused on improving standards, but to ensure there was paperwork for staff to complete when they knew they were about to fail in reaching the standards. And, of course, there was no metric to measure when failures reached an unacceptable limit🙄 It continues to bewilder me that we live in a world where it’s acceptable that the first reaction to seeing you’re about to fail is not to work to avoid failing, but instead to spend time documenting that you will fail.

When the way you measure standards of service is so skewed, is it any surprise technology is being used to hide behind. In order to achieve the work output required of them, it’s routine for staff to divert phones to voicemail for large parts of the day/week, because any fool knows it’s easier to get old work done when there’s no new work coming in. While management continue to measure customer satisfaction using the stats on work completed, clients will measure their (dis)satisfaction by a very different metric. I’m sure we’ve all been on the client side of this experience, but only when complaints to senior executives overwhelm them, will they consider hiring more staff. Maybe… ‘cos they could also consider investing in yet more new technology. What’s the saying, my kindgom for a headless chicken horse😤

Leaving the world of work…

Mobile phones are central to our lives, so what happens if your phone stops working, is lost or stolen? How much of your online life has been set up with two part authentication, ‘cos that’s one problem which won’t be solved by having a fully set-up and info-laden back-up phone (which is nevertheless recommended).

Talking of increased reliance on mobile phones, instead of understanding and accommodating the (rapidly shrinking) generation who aren’t technology literate and need to do things the analog way, UK banks have recently imposed a new “service” upon all customers over a certain age. Himself and I have experienced our (different) banks randomly refuse to honour payments. The amounts were small and there was more than sufficient funds in our accounts at the time but, because we’re both over 60, this new “service” ensures no-one will take advantage of us😡 Not that our banks informed us of this new “service” – oh no, I read about it in the news online, like the luddite I am. Formal complaints have been registered but, because I don’t doubt it will (randomly) happen again, I now carry cash, which actually is a risky behaviour.

We recently lost both cell signal and internet access for a few days following a large storm. We’ve experienced this elsewhere, but it was an unfamiliar experience to people in our new locale, and shops and businesses were bemoaning it as their payment systems stopped working. What we discovered the last time it happened to us is most digital services suppliers (in the UK) don’t have proper back-up in place. So, if you’re dependent upon cell or internet service, there may be trouble ahead… and I say that as someone who is a big fan of technology and its benefits.

Clearly there’s still much to learn about how to use technology for the best of all members of society, and I suspect there’ll be plenty more hurdles to jump as new technology continues to be developed.

It seems unlikely there’s any luddites in this blog world, but are you team fabulous, team flawed, or somewhere in between? Any experiences to share of technology’s helpfulness or otherwise…?

© Debs Carey, 2026