Years ago in India - where I was born and raised - the employees of a bank in a small town decided to stage a strike. They had been informed (by their superiors in the city) that their workstations were about to be invaded by computers. This brought about deep resentment. Out came placards and black flags (symbolising mourning, for this was but a token strike, a hopeless gesture against the sweeping tide of computerdom.)
Clerks and tellers, with years of accurate data entry skills via pen and ink in neat ledger columns, were suddenly required to enrol at the nearest typing institute and learn how to touch type. A few, with arthritically inflexible fingers, chucked in their hands, wincingly accepted a "golden handshake" and wandered off, disgruntled, into the twilight of retirement. Many soldiered on, the daily battle to put bread on the table constantly in mind.
The bank, meanwhile, inducted a stream of fresh young recruits to fill the breach. These were the computer wizards of their day and they, albeit egotistically at times, helped the not-so-confident oldies come to terms with the binary alacrity of the new gadgets.
Shift, control, alt and escape became the new vocabulary. Escape, in the beginning, was the most used key as, for example, when Mr S. Thiruvenkatagopalan's account was called up on computer and it revealed a balance of merely five rupees much to the astonishment of the account-holder, Mr Thiru, himself who stood on the other side of the counter, clutching it frantically for support from the shock. The last time he checked, he swore, his balance had been well in excess of a lakh!
Recheck the screen, advised a young recruit. The older teller did. Now re-check the account name.
A-ha! It's Thiruvenkatagopala, not Thiruvenkatagopalan! Right, hit Escape. On average, after 15 escapes a day it was time to escape home to a hot, de-stressing cup of Lipton's Red Label.
Gradually, however, things improved. The old soldiers no longer merely plodded or "marched" but galloped through a day's work. In time, they couldn't remember what life was like before the computer arrived. Or if they did, it was only to recall days of tedium, the distracting rustle of pages of ledgers that weighed tonnes and the endless, snaking queues that coiled around the branch while waiting for entries to be debited or credited in a meticulous hand.
Touch screen machine
Two months ago, the bank in my little suburb in Sydney introduced a touch screen machine for customers. Since this was its first run, a smiling bank employee was positioned beside the machine to help clients figure out which areas of the screen to 'touch', depending on the nature of their business.
Mrs McLaverty, an outspoken octogenarian who's only conducted transactions via a passbook, refused point blank to even acknowledge the machine. "Bring me the manager!" she ordered. The manager arrived, smiling dutifully. After a session of cajoling and determining that Mrs McLaverty was seeking to withdraw money, it was the bank manager that touched the screen, which in turn produced a numbered slip. Sit on the couch there, the manager instructed her, and watch the television screen above. When your number shows up, go to the counter.
Mrs McLaverty fumed and fretted aloud to anyone that would listen. "This machine-driven world" bore the brunt of her fury.
"I'll be damned if I'm going to walk up to a screen and touch it. I'm not about to look ridiculous in my old age, thank you very much. They can take their touch screens and dump them in the Pacific." And much more.
Last week, however, I happened to encounter the rebellious Mrs McLaverty again. There she stood, with another elder citizen, just before me at the 'touch screen' machine. And she, Mrs McLaverty, with all the expertise she could muster, was instructing the other timid one which section of the screen to give a discreet tap.
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
