Now that explains the premature happy new year and I wondered to myself what era of lightening speed technology do we live in, worlds apart yet in seconds we can get to exchange pictures of what’s happening where and how, and it feels just as if we are present right there!

I also recall the time when capturing special moments meant that this huge, black and bulky looking camera with its intimidating paraphernalia and accessories would come in this enormous trunk almost like the trousseau of a new bride. The strange looking umbrella on top of the camera and formidable hours it would take to fix it and rummage through the right moment to click! One wrong pose or a titled head and there you go again…start the entire drill all over. By the way does anyone recall the ostentatious click sound of the flash in that dinosaur equipment!

And today we all carry phone cameras with us clicking mindlessly, erasing and clicking again, anytime, anywhere, any place..How convenient and hassle free! Speaking of cell phones, we are residing in the age of sms culture, where one needs to learn the ropes of a new language which is the sms slang ranging anywhere from ‘xtra’, ‘bak’, ‘gr8’ and what not in the list of truncated words! I’m still learning while my 12 year old son is adept at this dialect of English language and often volunteers to educate me!

My train of thought was jolted back to the resume in front of me. The ‘skills’ part in the document distracted me off tangent to this entire ‘then’ and ‘now’ comparison. The resume just like hordes of others boasted of a host of computer programming skills proudly flaunting the extraordinary knowledge of this wonder machine. Ms Word, HTML, AdobePhotoshop, Autocad, Java and the list goes on with the word ‘proficient’ suffixed alongside!

Life is definitely different today if not tough. I recall, I used to go with my dad to his office and I would see these serious looking men literally hiding behind their noisy and gigantic typewriters going ‘cluck cluck cluck!’ they used to be so engrossed and appeared so meticulous at their work. It seemed like it was their claim to fame to be able to tame that beast and come out with really perfectly typed papers in minutes.

Shorthand used to be a language which only the most able people knew, it was a sign of intelligence to be able to fluently use it. Just when the boss would begin speaking, the assistant would take notes at the swiftest pace possible and reproduce the discourse word for word. Not a dot here, not a comma out of place! In job adverts it used to categorically state excellent command over shorthand and typing as a prerequisite to landing a decent job. Candidates’ strength and source of pride would be the number of words they could type per minute. Often secretaries were tested to prove competence in this area before they could land a position. Shorthand and typing courses were then the new ‘Ms Word’ short courses.

Mushrooming everywhere, these training centres would mint money in teaching this much sought after skill. The most desirable learning for any fresh graduate wanting to enter the corporate world at that time was to do a short course on shorthand or typing. Get familiar with the jargon and the technique. Now it only belongs in a the museum or a vintage collection. The only image that the mind conjures of the user of this machine now is an intellectual hermit, wearing black, square, thick rimmed glasses, with centre parted hair greased with jasmine oil, wearing boot cut pants sipping on cardamom tea. Or maybe a Victorian era playwright, diligently smacking the keys of a humungus typewriter at the dawning of a spontaneous idea like something from Moulin Rouge.

Today we have been transported from the ‘Flintstones’ times to the ‘Jetsons’ era. Human race has progressed in terms of culture, habits and practices which have invaded our work style and influenced the corporate ‘ins’ and ‘outs’.

In order to be considered for any job the most fundamental requirement is command over this machine which is the deity to our workspaces. If nothing else, you are expected to know how the hardware and equipment plugs in and gets connected even if you are a teaboy! Without this basic skill you cannot dream of being in any building which resembles even closely an office!

Apart from being the hardware doctor, to be able to work, computer knowledge is synonymous to literacy level. If you don’t possess this knowledge then the future is only restricted to tomato gardening! Organisations even go to the extent of probing into the levels of proficiency acquired in each of the languages of computers. Is it ‘basic’, ‘practitioner’ or ‘expert’ level for every program that one is aware of? To capture minutes of the meeting or to take a dictation, one only need their palm top, take quick notes in this tablet and ‘save’, voila! You are done for the day.

The computer user today ranges from a three-year-old toddler who begins playing Xbox to a 90-year-old wrinkled skin hag who Skypes with his/ her grandkids across the globe! You are not going to be making bland transparencies on an overhead projector for your boss to present in a room, which looks more like the interrogation cell of a suspect criminal with the daunting yellow light permeating through a dingy room, rather you are going to make a super interactive and vibrant PowerPoint presentation with pictures, animation effects, video clips and background music to be presented adding zing and life to the boardroom. So pull up your socks and know this monster like the back of your hands.

With these thoughts, I shortlisted the resume, with a battery of computer proficient languages, to the next stage for processing!