By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

He’s standing against the wall, arms hanging, hands clasped, as if protecting his genitals. I advance toward the checkout desk with my library books. His eye spots me, and he leaps to attention in a quick sudden move. “Have you ever used the self check, mam?”

“Mmm. Yes,” I say hesitantly. There’s no one in line. The librarians are at the ready to help me. “We’re trying to train our customers to use the self check,” he said in a low conspiratorial voice.

And with meticulous attention, he helps me adjust the bar codes under the electronic light until all have been recorded and my receipt appears.

“We’re training the people to eliminate our jobs,” he said without rancor, just in case I hadn’t caught on to the implication of his original explanation.

And so it goes in this wonderful world of automation. I can self check-out at Target, Costco and some Publixes. I can check in at airport kiosks and, for about 30 years, I have been pumping my own gas.

As fast as any government or privately-sponsored program can create jobs, automation is eliminating jobs. And, as government shrinks, we will surely find an overabundance of unemployed government workers.  It seems like a widespread game of musical chairs.  It’s no news that we are living in the most agonizingly long transition period as traditional jobs shrink.

So, in an attempt to be supportive, I thought I’d rustle up  some  information that might be helpful for future career planning. Of course, if your career has already spanned a lifetime, perhaps you might share some of these gems with your progeny. (We all know how much “progeny” likes advice, but you might just try!)

Job title:

E-Scrubber – works to undo or minimize the indiscretions that people accumulate on the web.

Deceptionist – Provides tech-enabled deception services for those wishing to disguise their activities.

Geoscraper – Makes corporate and private properties look attractive in Google-earth style aerial views.

Unplugger – Mental health professional who helps wean people from excessive use of technology.

If your expertise doesn’t qualify you for any of the above, to continue the automation trend, here are some things I found on a Google list that have yet to be totally automated. Some clever inventor or entrepreneur might figure out how to close the gap here,  thus eliminating all housekeeping jobs: making the bed;  ironing clothes; cleaning; dusting; vacuuming  with the flip of a switch or the clap of two hands (yes yes, I know about the automatic vacuum – but what about dusting?); helping the kids with homework? No! It was on the list, but let’s never eliminate THAT, although, admittedly, it’s getting to be more and more of a challenge.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. We lose them. We create them. We mix and match them. Where will my library friend go when all of us folks approach the automatic machines and check out by ourselves?

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

In a recent column in The New York Times, David Brooks exhorted his readers over 70 to write a brief  report of their life, an evaluation of what they did well, and not so well, and what they have learned. His purpose: young people are given little help in understanding how life develops, how careers and families evolve, and what are the common mistakes and blessings of adulthood. He asked that readers send their “Life Reports” to him at dabrooks@nytimes.com. Here’s mine.

With a solid set of middle class American-born parents, I graduated from college with a double degree in Journalism and Marketing, determined to save the world. I believed that we could persuade the Soviet Union to engage with us in such a Utopia and I became enmeshed with the gurus of the United World Federalists. Subsequently, I marched with all the flavor-of-the-month “rights” protesters and attended “rah-rah” meetings that validated the righteousness of the causes.

Youth is like that … often, all passion and rage and righteousness … and if not then – when?

I worked as an editorial assistant at several magazines, fell in love with my married bosses, became a Madison Avenue huckster, touting stockings and corn flakes and came to a dead career stop when I saw the inanity of my life.

With a new degree, in education, I would save the world by educating the young Puerto Rican immigrants flooding into the Upper West Side of Manhattan. My first year, I cried every day on the bus ride home. I couldn’t understand why Hector refused to read “Dick and Jane,” while insisting on creating clay images of male anatomy. I suspect that today he is one of the world’s great sculptors.

Married with two children, I worked in the original Head Start program. The government threw tons of money at us – much of which we didn’t need. My job was replaced by two PhDs and a plethora of useless inventory.

Again, back to school for degrees in Special Ed, and then Mental Health Counseling and some brief work counseling alcohol-addicted teenagers.

In a complete turnaround, I retreated to “Stepford Wifery,” country club dinner dances, golf, tennis, PTA. My husband’s career took off. We had money to burn, a second home in Florida, we traveled the world.

I became a columnist for a local newspaper and was once assigned to interview the wife of an upcoming politico who was in town fundraising for her husband. I refused the assignment because I had a tennis game and figured she was a nobody. Alas, Hillary Clinton never met me, and I never hit the glass ceiling.

With an entrepreneurial friend, we formed a singing telegram business, the rage gift for the folks who “had everything.” Success to the max, and, after about 10 years, I sold it, and turned it into Personalized Poetry for all occasions… “We write ‘em, you recite ‘em.”

In 1994, in our late 60s, we moved to Florida, “retired.” What do I do now?

Here is where I found my true calling, volunteering in a mental health facility and in a non-partisan political organization, writing this column and book reviews, reading prodigiously, teaching  a writing workshop with emphasis on personal insight into feelings and behaviors, publishing two anthologies of work of my students, riding my bike, walking the beach, enjoying my family and griping about what’s wrong with the world.

I’ve had disappointments, loss and sickness, and suffered significant economic downturn. But I never stop being grateful. The most important thing I learned is to recognize the difference between reasonable expectations and realistic ones. I’ve trained myself to have realistic expectations – the reasonable ones are mostly disappointing, and rarely come through. I’ve been married 57 years, and what I learned from that is for a big fat book.

In any one week, I can feel extremes of high and lows, I can love and hate the same person, I can feel good and bad about myself (No, I’m not schizophrenic.) It all balances out, and a good laugh fans all flames. And I accept that, in the end, everyone dies.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

iTunes – iPhones – iPods – iPads … Eye yi yi yi! Kindle – Kindle Touch – Kindle Keyboard – Kindle Fire – The Nook – The all-new Nook – the Droid – touch pads – swipe pads – 3G – 4G – apps – more apps – Xbox – Wii and blogs, blogs, blogs …  OMG! There’s a whole new language sprouting up all around me. HELP! I feel like I’m standing at a train station, and the express has just whizzed by me – and oops! That was my train and I missed it.

On a scale of 1 to 10 regarding cyberspace, I’ve slid to about a 5. Twenty-six years ago, I was cutting edge, the only person I knew who owned, and could use a computer, my trusty 1985 Mac, full price about $6,000.  I could not even carry on a dinner conversation about my computer because there was no one who could talk the language. I probably should have kept it. Someone on eBay could be looking for it.

Today, I am working with Windows XP on my flat screen desk computer – probably the eighth one I have owned, exclusive of my husband’s laptop.  I love my mouse. As I stare at it, I feel like I’m looking at the tail of a Dinosaur.  It’s two years old. People around me are swiping and pad-touching and sending me email messages from Blackberries and iPhones  and text messages about sunsets, about walks with their dogs and urging me to find them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Every two weeks or so, I check on LinkedIn and find only people who want to sell me their wares or who complain about the sorry state of Journalism today. I haven’t checked my Twitter account for two years. And when I go to my Facebook page, I find a bunch of people I don’t even know, showing me pictures of their pet poodles in costume or their adorable grandkids, or their Harley Davidson’s. Some of them exhort me to check their YouTube creations, where I am urged to engage in a more spiritual life, to love my neighbors and, more important, to love myself (I do, I do!).

Where is this all going? I know we are only on the cusp now. I read The Futurist. I follow some of the work of Ray Kurzweil – Google him!

(Google is happiness!)  – a scientist, futurist, who sees humans living for many hundreds of years by 2029, encased in myriad robotic body parts. Robotic genitalia? Lord – take that image off my radar screen!

Ah, but I’ve wandered afar. I intended to make this a treatise on eBooks. It looks like the new Kindle can do everything except make pizzas, and I am about to succumb. If you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em, but I’ll never catch that train.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Time for a break, for a bit of fluff. Time to get away from “serious.”

Venus de Milo lovers seem to be in a conspiracy these days to “make it up to her.” She, without arms; and they “all arms.”  Was it Michelle Obama who set the style? I am not a fashionista, but just take a watch at live TV these days. All one sees in female fashion is  – arms. I guess one could say, “We’re a nation up in arms!”

While once, women were ashamed to expose their flab, today, bare arms are waved at the public like American Flags. Some of us are still around to remember the sheath on very young women from “Mad Men” days. Seems they never left the racks.

Here is what I don’t understand, and perhaps it has something to do with my own body thermostat. All hot summer long, one would think that TV studios would be an icy haven, a low temperature cocoon in which to work.  So where are the goose bumps? None! Smooth, well-creamed, visibly “abbed” arms. Okay – so maybe they are all workout gals. But aren’t they COLD?

I, for one, never walk into any air conditioned place without some kind of wrap for my cold, flabby arms, which are usually concealed anyway. Have I committed the chic-crime of the century  by choosing  function over fashion?

So I’m thinking that, in this draggy economy, these folks are buying half a dress. Perhaps, they are looking to save money. The sleeve-material from five dresses could easily make another dress, especially as necklines keep dropping, thus saving another couple of yards. But, alas, no! The cost of sleeveless dresses does not in any way reflect the reduced cost of material. Bummer!

I do, however, plan to keep a sharp winter watch on arms. Unless TV studios broadcast from below the equator, I’m thinking that sooner or later, these TV ladies will need a cover up. Of course, as the winter political season heats up, there may be enough hot air in cable and news studios to keep bare-armed women warm. Who knows?

Next time, I plan to get serious.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

It was the worst of times! It was the worst of times … except this Pollyana sees a sliver of “Best.”

Chaos at the Capitol, weeks of wrangling, deals made, deals fade. Leaders dashing in and out of closed doors, hallways, talk shows, anywhere but home, at all hours of the night – pontifications to the max. By Sunday, both Republicans and Democrats were squealing, almost in unison, “Just get it done already!”

Despite the rancor, the accusations, the finger pointing, the political sashaying, it was obvious that the main spokespeople for both points of view felt equally passionate and righteous about their principles, even as bundles of lobbying dollars were securely tucked in their coiffeurs.

But you don’t go to the Capitol to sit on your principles without budging. And with a ticking time-clock snapping at their heels, an exhausted Congress made a deal that everyone basically hated, the operative words being – “made a deal.”

For sure, we don’t know what will happen in the days to come, what follow-up clashes we’ll see, how the “committee” will work, but for now I think we’d be smart to take another look at how we got to where we are and to take big note of what did not happen.

As dysfunctional as it seemed, a certain (limited) civility was present. Rules were adhered to. Procedures were respected. And major ideological diversities were recognized, and accepted as being the fabric of our country. The folks who espouse them will never stop attempting to bring the opposition into their camp – with big mouths and rhetoric, and, yes, and, alas, dollars, but not with guns and torture.

If you are not a political junkie (as I am), you missed probably the most exciting news day of modern memory this past Sunday. It made every political movie and TV sitcom look like waiting for the fish to bite. And powering all the frenetic activity, and blowhard commentary, was the basic truth that the balance between spending and revenue in our country is askew and has been for decades. It was much too easy to slide by when there was no crisis looming.

No leader, no party  and no disinterested citizen is immune to blame. Admittedly, some of the numbered details concerning this stuff is a cure for insomnia, but these past few weeks have been a jolting wake-up call.

We are a country bursting with diversity, changing at speeds heretofore unknown, and if we don’t accept that compromise is what holds us together, then we are doomed … to extinction … or bloody revolution.

The best of times? Maybe not quite, but surely not what the naysayers have put out there. History has chronicled the demise of many great civilizations. It’s possible that this seeming debacle has put the brakes on our journey in that direction.

By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

Jim Kurtz flew from Boston to George Britton’s house in Boca Raton this week,  to talk to George about Jim’s long-dead father. He arrived at 6 p.m., left at 10:30 p.m. and flew back to Boston early the following morning. So what’s the story, and what’s it to me?

The search for a father is not an entirely new story, but this one is in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, with a Freudian passion and drive that hasn’t let up for the past 10 years. Jim was 2 years old in 1952 when his father, Bob, died, from service-related heart issues, seven years after having been discharged from the Air Force. In essence, Jim never knew  his father – “knew,” that is, in the way he had yearned for, and the gaping hole in his life remained just that, despite all of his many life successes, and, too, despite the stories of his three elder brothers and his mother, who just turned 90. Every Father’s Day in his life made the hole bigger.

Father Bob had been an Air Force co-pilot, and, on his 19th mission, was shot down over Austria, captured and imprisoned by the Germans for the remainder of the war. George Britton, a writer, student and friend of mine had been part of that B-24 crew and, now, at age 86, is one of the two remaining survivors of that experience,  and is the last connecting dot on Jim’s trail of his dad.

Driven to squeeze out every ounce of that story, Jim was determined to talk to George in person. Even with today’s multi-layered alternative methods of communication, the one-on-one eyeball connection was important to Jim. I was there, by mutual consent, to help with the story that Jim is planning to write.

These are the lengths to which Jim has gone — having extricated a trove of material, letters, pictures and various mementoes from the attic of his mother’s house (many of which he brought to share with George), he was all the more determined to relive, to the extent possible, that particular period in the life of his father.

“I wanted to feel, as much as possible, what he felt,” he said.

He took two trips to Austria, after deep research, and met and spoke to some of the witnesses to the crash, and climbed an arduous 6,500 feet into the still snow-covered mountain where the plane came down. He actually discovered some of the remains of the plane, including the co-pilot’s seat which he brought home. He even located and talked to the German pilot of the plane that had shot down his father’s plane.

But still, not enough for Jim. Through the Collings Foundation, he flew in the last operational B24 in the world, just to get a sense of being in one. And then, he hauled himself into a commercial sky-dive to feel … feel … feel the free fall of the parachute descent his father had experienced.

But for Jim, it’s the letters which define his father, a prolific writer himself, the letters and words and impressions of others … from each person, another father.

Did he get to know his father? Do any of us ever really get to know our parents? How well do we even know ourselves?  For some, the search never ends.