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... has now been posted to my site. Everyone was talking about Simon behind his back, let's see what Simon's up to from his point of view!
Jul. 31st, 2013
New Ethshar Serial!
Jul. 31st, 2013 12:29 pmLawrence Watt-Evans has started a new serial in Ethshar called Ishta's Companion! If you like his work, go donate so he can keep writing it! :)
A Person out of Time...
Jul. 31st, 2013 01:12 pmOver on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written, a poster postulated the following:
"Take a guy from the 50s and drop him into a new car and he'll almost certainly be able to drive to the same sort of office he knew and perform the same sort of sales job, just like he's used to doing. All that's substantially changed is computers, which he'd probably be quickly be able to learn just as well (aka, poorly) as people do these days."
My reaction to this -- and that of several other posters -- was "what are you smoking?"
In my opinion, drop a guy (in sales or marketing) from the 1950s into a 2013 model car, cold, he'll have a hell of a time figuring out how to work the CAR, let alone drive to work. And he'll be utterly at sea with respect to doing his work. As far as I can make out, sales and marketing jobs today are *LIGHTYEARS* different from those done 60 years ago. He'll be having to deal with things ranging from the startlingly annoying ("What do you mean, I can't smoke at my desk?") to the potentially career-ending-in-one-day ("What's wrong, toots? I slapped your ass, sure, it's a nice ass, take it as a compliment, babe!") to the incomprehensible ("Why is there a skinny TV on my desk? Where's my Rolodex? What happened to my PHONE?")
So, fellow readers... what would YOU think will happen to Mr. 1950 Dagwood Bumstead or even Freddy Fastlane salesman/marketer when he steps into his car and finds... he's in the year 2013?
"Take a guy from the 50s and drop him into a new car and he'll almost certainly be able to drive to the same sort of office he knew and perform the same sort of sales job, just like he's used to doing. All that's substantially changed is computers, which he'd probably be quickly be able to learn just as well (aka, poorly) as people do these days."
My reaction to this -- and that of several other posters -- was "what are you smoking?"
In my opinion, drop a guy (in sales or marketing) from the 1950s into a 2013 model car, cold, he'll have a hell of a time figuring out how to work the CAR, let alone drive to work. And he'll be utterly at sea with respect to doing his work. As far as I can make out, sales and marketing jobs today are *LIGHTYEARS* different from those done 60 years ago. He'll be having to deal with things ranging from the startlingly annoying ("What do you mean, I can't smoke at my desk?") to the potentially career-ending-in-one-day ("What's wrong, toots? I slapped your ass, sure, it's a nice ass, take it as a compliment, babe!") to the incomprehensible ("Why is there a skinny TV on my desk? Where's my Rolodex? What happened to my PHONE?")
So, fellow readers... what would YOU think will happen to Mr. 1950 Dagwood Bumstead or even Freddy Fastlane salesman/marketer when he steps into his car and finds... he's in the year 2013?