Despite the fact that I’m not looking for a profession, and thus in no need of insight into which ones are going south opportunity-wise, I’m always interested in the prognosis for different job categories. Thus, I was delighted to stumble across an article on Work & Money entitled “25 Dying Professions You Should Avoid.” Here’s part one of my take on the roundup:
- Travel Agent: This one has been on the list since, like, forever, a profession that’s been circling the drain since the first bulletin board for airfare comparisons went live. There used to be a travel agency on Beacon Hill, and I remember going in there to book flights. Can’t remember where we were going, but it must have been in 1976 that we went in to talk to a travel agent who explained to us that the best fare she had available was something called the BN – the Bicentennial Nightly. There’s some good news for those who’ve been dreaming about a career as a travel agent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics “predicts an increase in the need for people who are experts in specific destinations or particular types of travelers. That could include corporate, luxury, study abroad or travelers over 55.” Whatever the outlook, I’m here to tell you that it is actually easier to have someone else do your trip planning. I know this not because I’ve talked to a travel agent since the advent of the Internet, but because my late husband took care of all the details for our trips. Now that I’ve got to do all the looking around and picking and choosing on my own, all I can say is WHAT A DRAG.
- Mortgage Banker: This profession was nearly wiped out during the Great Recession of ought-eight, with the nail put in the coffin by the likes of Quicken and Rocket Mortgage. When you can get your $$$ on a smartphone, why go into a boring office and talk to someone? I suspect that many mortgage bankers weren’t worth a damn. Still, I’d advise the smartphone mortgagees to read the fine print, even if the font is 2 pitch on their smartphone.
- Bookkeeper: QuickBooks et al. apps are the stake in the heart of the old green-eye-shade profession of bookkeeper. Even the name is quaint. I suspect there’ll still be some demand for this role, as there are folks out there who really don’t want anything to do with DIY. Of course these bookkeepers of the futures will be using QuickBooks et al., so there just won’t be much demand for them.
Lawyer: Seriously folks, some of my best friends are lawyers. But I don’t think anyone other than third-tier law school professors and ambulance chaser wannabes will regret the decline of this profession. Again, it’s technology that’s resting the case on this line of work. Discovery – which used to involve legal profession newbies poring over voluminous piles of documents – is now done through AI-driven search. Which doesn’t take any people. The “president” is apparently not aware of technology, as witnessed by his tweet saying that it would be impossible for the witch-hunters to sift through Hillary’s 30,000 emails in quick order. Must not be aware of keyword search, natural language processing, etc. Broadcaster (DJ): Ah, I came of age in the age of the great local DJ. In Worcester, WORC was the station of choice, and Dick “The Derby” Smith was the top jock. “The Derby” may or may not have been the first DJ in the States to play the Beatles, but Worcester was the market where some new songs were tried out. (I remember being excited when “Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain” had the honor of being introduced in Worcester.) As I grew more sophisticated (ahem) and got a better radio (turquoise plastic), my allegiance shifted to Boston’s WBZ, where I was a fan of Juicy Brucie Bradley, Jefferson Kaye, and Dick Summer. Today, there’s just not the demand for DJ’s on the local radio scene, but there is for party DJ’s. So someone will be spinning those platters. Middle Manager: According to this list, middle managers are little more than paper pushers, whose work is “increasingly being done by enterprise software like Oracle and Salesforce.” Organizations have certainly been flattened over the last couple of decades, but – perhaps because at times in my career I was one – I can defend the role of middle manager as a lot more than paper pusher. How about defender of your team from nonsense from above, explainer of – but not apologist for – executive decisions, mentor, coach, advisor, shrink, problem solver, facilitator, person who actually has a clue about what’s going on in the organization and the market, and, of yeah, keeper of their day job as an individual contributor. All hail, middle managers! Casino Cashier: I’ve been to casinos a few times in my life and on one glorious occasion won $200 at the slots in Reno. But I’m not much of a gambler, so was unaware that quarter slots have mostly been replaced by credit cards, which makes it more difficult to limit yourself to just bringing your roll of quarters and calling it a day when you’ve lost the $10. And with it came automated payouts, which replaces the cashiers. The good news is that, with so many states glomming on to casinos as a revenue panacea, there’s higher demand for dealers at the tables. Baby will always need a new pair of shoes… IT Guys: With so many applications that used to be on your PC or on the local server now living out there on the cloud, there’s less need for the IT guy who “sneaker-netted” over to your office when nothing was working. IMHO, it’s not just the cloud. The apps themselves, and the PC’s, are more – to use one of my least favorite tech descriptors – robust. Word doesn’t die in the middle of your writing a twenty page document you haven’t saved. And when was the last time you saw the blue screen of death? Still, the cloud and better software and hardware quality in general won’t eliminate the need for IT guys. It’s just that smaller companies may not need their own full time guys, and will outsource the function. Tomorrow, we’ll work our way further down the list.
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