The Last Hot-Metal Edition
The most valuable part went first
The thing they were fastest at
The move from hot metal to photocomposition in 1970s newspapers; Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu
Why the most skilled are often replaced first. The conditions under which mastery turns into a liability.
What actually happened?
The compositors everyone respected were the fast ones. Lines set per minute was the trade's public scoreboard. Photocomposition arrived and the whole board was void, because the machine set faster than any of them and never tired. What followed was counterintuitive. The most skilled took the hardest hit, since their entire worth was staked on the one thing being replaced. The ones who had never been fastest, but who understood something besides speed, were the ones who could move.
The scoreboard was set by the trade, not by you
The thing you compete to be first at was usually chosen for you long before you arrived. When that board is voided, the people near the top lose most, because they have put every chip on a position that can be lifted away whole.
Fastest, most accurate, most practised. Those are precisely the measures a tool catches up with first.
Mastery blocks the view of other directions
Getting very fast at one thing pays clearly, so people keep putting the hours there. When it stops counting, nothing else has been started. This is not unwillingness to learn. Every single year, continuing to sharpen the main thing was the best available move.
For years the smart choice was another hour on your strongest skill, right up until it stopped being worth anything.
Keep one thing that is not on the board
Skills off the scoreboard pay slowly and attract no attention at the time. Because they attract no attention, they are also not in the first wave of what gets matched. They cannot replace the main skill. They decide whether you are standing when it is voided.
The fastest hands could not move. The one who understood how a page reads still had somewhere to go.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you rank high on your trade's public scoreboard, and tools are closing in on the events it measures.
Ask first: which measures does my trade actually compete on? Which of them is a tool already better at than me? Beyond that board, what else do I have?
Where it goes wrong: reading it as do not get very good. Being the best was never the mistake. The mistake is staking your whole worth on a board that can be lifted away whole.
Lines to keep
Every year, sharpening the main thing was the best available move.
What is off the scoreboard is not in the first wave.
Same situation, other people are asking
What I'm good at, nobody needs right now.Anything I can be trained to do, something else can now do too.It does in seconds what used to be my whole day.The one thing I was best at, it now does better.My craft stopped being worth anything · all 6 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.