Tag: technology

Same Work, Different Tools

How has technology changed your job?

I’m a technical writer/trainer/instructional designer as my paying job. I also do a lot of editing. This kind of profession has probably been around since there were jobs. Someone has to teach others skills needed in various professions, and someone has to record information accurately.

Someone had to pass along fence building skills on ranches, so birds could poop out seeds and create rows of trees on fence lines. These are Eve’s necklacepods (Styphnolobium affine)

I’m pretty sure there are technical manuals in hieroglyphics. No doubt scribes hand-wrote instructions for doing things correctly. Certainly people have shown others how to perform tasks (weaving, sewing, carpentry, brewing, and such) without need for writing. Maybe they drew pictures. Teachers have always had to be there to pass down necessary skills, whether formally or informally.

No one teaches flowers how to bloom.

So, while I don’t work in the world’s oldest profession, skills like mine have always been needed to pass on traditional skills. Teaching may be the second oldest profession.

Technology has affected what I do like it has any form of teaching. It’s provided new tools to create material and given us options like videos, which any of us can now use (to either teach or confuse, judging from the videos on knitting I’ve seen).

I need a genetics teacher to explain how the white versions of flowers come up.

Of course, what I teach about is software, which wouldn’t be a subject if we didn’t have computers at our fingertips. Sometimes I wish I could teach something more tangible or timeless. Software comes and goes in a flash. No one needs my WordPerfect teaching skills today!

I figure no matter what new technology comes up, I’ll be using it to share knowledge with others. That’s my passion.

Conversely, I’ll also keep wanting to learn. It’s why I enjoy my journey with trying to ride my horses skillfully and care for them appropriately. No matter how old I get, I want to keep moving and learning. Just look at my posture! I hardly recognize myself.

Apache also looks better.

I’m glad to have a job that’s always relevant, no matter how times and technology change. I’m just as glad to have hobbies that have been around a long time but remain relevant, like equestrian skills and crafts!

Temperature blanket through March 24

End of ramble. Here’s another picture of me and Apache, this time looking medieval.

He has muscles!

So Much Annoyance, You Just Gotta Laugh

Geez, folks, this week I’m being tested for something. Perhaps it’s, “Can Suna find humor in everything?” “Is there a reason to smile hiding in any annoyance?” I hope I pass the exam, because I’m really trying to find humor and beauty, but today has, basically, sucked.

Nature’s always there to rescue me and remind me there’s good out there. So, here ya go, it’s the bloom off my mother-in-law’s tongue plant. How delicate and wondrous that is. Getting a houseplant to bloom has to make you smile (for pictures of it when it was budding, check out my very long houseplant post).

And, my daily commute (yay, I have the all-clear to go to the office) started and ended with one of my favorite sounds, cedar waxwings in large flocks. They flew over, but none were close enough to to photograph. I just love those whistles they make.

In between the commutes was a very frustrating work day, in which all my hardware components decided they were tired of functioning normally. My monitors did a devlish dance that was hard for me to believe. The really nice IT dude drove over (most people work from home) to try to help, which resulted in one monitor ceasing to let itself be found, my new keyboard and mouse stopped working, and my dock gave up the ghost. Well, shoot. I have not yet found the humor in that situation…it just happens when you rely on technology for your job!

Look, there’s a second bloom stalk hiding back there!

So, I ended up having to do delicate meetings on the phone. I started pacing, which apparently made everyone else on the call nauseated. It did give my boss something to laugh about, so there, a good thing came out of it. We were doing meetings that were not fun for us, so there was more than the usual amount of gentle ribbing, photos of dogs, and other distractions. See, not all bad. And I was pivoting, like a good Agile worker.

I got home and was reminded of the other thing that had me annoyed, from yesterday. I left my dang knitting project over at the Hermits’ Rest house. Having gone through a bunch of minor annoyances yesterday, I really wanted to knit, so I ran all over the Bobcat Lair house until I found a yarn I’d bought years ago back when I had knitting friends and went to the Kid ‘n Ewe festival.

Who needs a pattern when the yarn is so lovely, right<

I decided to just start out with a plain triangular shawl, with a classy tabbed start. I’m going to throw in some simple lace later, now that I realize that the blues and purples aren’t too distracting. The yarn is hand dyed from a Texas dyer that’s no longer in business, but I like how it has a matte thread and a shiny thread plied together. So, that’s one more annoyance I was able to laugh at.

Hey, thanks for the nice words and comments on my previous post. I have some really great readers. And by the way, you can always go read blogs on WordPress if you want to cheer up. There’s so much beauty, and at least a river isn’t flooding my back yard (garden) like poor @knittingjane of Woolly Wednesday. Go read a blog! And take care!