What Phone Operators Can Teach Us About a Biden Campaign Promise

First off, congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Barring a major legal twist, they will take office in January.

Much was made of something Mr. Biden said in the closing moments of the second debate regarding the future of Pennsylvania's fossil fuel industry. Without getting into details, Mr. Biden basically announced that under his plan, major changes would be coming by the year 2035 to migrate towards renewable energy. It’s logical to think those changes will impact jobs. It became a hot button campaign topic in the final days, so I wanted to share this managerial anecdote (from my perspective only) and my wish for the people currently holding those important jobs.

It reminded me of a discussion 14 or 15 years ago while working at a local television news station in Jacksonville, FL. We were fitting the cameras in our studio with robotic pedestals, meaning one camera operator at a computer could now do what used to require four people to achieve. It coincided with our upgrade from standard definition to high definition broadcasting.

In a small meeting after the changes were announced, a long tenured colleague of mine named Kay(rest her soul) said, “I just like it when a lot of people work here.”  I said I do too and those people are my friends.  But then I asked the room, “who here has a cell phone?” Everyone raised their hand. I said, “once upon a time, a human being used to have to sit and manually connect every phone call.  I’m sure when that process became automated, tough conversations were had with those operators who were no longer necessary. Decades later however, the idea of a human being doing that job sounds ridiculous.” Then I asked, “ do you all think we shouldn't have cell phones today because people back then didn't want to accept advancing technology?”

I then said to my small audience, “20 or 30 years from now, we’ll be telling our kids... ‘back in our day, we used to have a person behind every camera physically pushing it around the studio all day’... and that idea will seem as foreign to them as having human phone operators sounds to us today.”  It will become one of our walking to school uphill both ways in a snow storm stories.

I closed by saying, “If any of the camera operators ask my advice, it will be not to go get another job as a local news camera operator. Sure, they may find another station that hasn’t automated yet, but fast forward 3-5 years and they’ll be in the exact same position." Some changes are so obvious, they become inevitable. And while it’s unquestionably difficult in the moment, you can’t stop progress.  

I don’t profess to know anything about the fossil fuel industry, but I know those jobs will not exist one day, whether it's due to technology or because we drain our limited fossil fuel resources dry. Having a 15 year lead time until 2035 is a wonderful luxury.  My sincere hope is with that kind of notice, change is embraced by those working in the industry instead of resisted. That way the move to cleaner, renewable energy doesn’t necessarily result in jobs lost, but jobs evolved for those who currently hold them.