Why barbers? Cutting hair is not going to be replaced by the net.
They mean barbers as opposed to hairdressers, since a lot of young men spend as much time and money on their hair as women do. Hence we all need fashion and products. Traditionally, “barbers” could do the universal male haircut and would be confused by a request for “volume effects” or a highlighting job.
Most people that call themselves barbers nowadays are hairdressers anyway, by that distinction. It seems like a silly thing to put on the list.
A couple of the others, like tellers and clerks, also seem unnecessary to list. Service skills are pretty transferable, so it’s unlikely an experienced bank teller won’t be able to find a new job.
Notice that there will be MORE “hairdressers”. Barbers are apparently, in their eyes, a small subset of the hairstyling industry that offer such limited serves that they won’t survive as a distinct entity. I go to a Cost Cutters, and have no idea whether the person cutting my hair is a barber or a hairdresser.
These people are splitting hairs with their definitions.
A few jobs I’m surprised weren’t listed -
Manuscript illuminators (obsolete)
Alchemists (replaced by pharmacists)
Prophets/oracles (replaced by cult leaders and kooks)
I go to a barber rather than a hairdresser. A good, old-fashioned barber with a pole and a straight razor and everything.
I wear my hair very simply and don’t fuss with it. I don’t put gel in it, don’t put mousse in it, and have no interest in doing so. I have found that places like Cost Cutters and Supercuts have absolutely no idea how to handle this. They ONLY know how to cut hair so that it looks good with a bunch of styling crap rubbed into it. So I decided to try out a barber, and lo, the man knows how to actually cut hair. If there were no barbers around I’d probably just shave it all off rather than go back to a stylist.
I noticed they listed my job, “Wholesale and Retail Buyers”, as one with no future, because the internet makes procurement for individuals easier, so regional buyers are disappearing.
I think that’s ridiculous. There will always be a need (or desire) for the local specialty store. Can you find that one-of-a-kind museum reproduction piece online? You know, the item from collections that I spent six months researching, having manufactured, and now offer in my lovely and carefully edited store? So much of customers’ buying (in my area - giftware, jewelry, etc.) is impulsive or based upon information they recently viewed or learned in our museum, that I don’t think my job will ever be obsolete. Sure, we’ll expand online and into wholesale, but I doubt my job is going to disappear any time soon.
I read a newspaper article yesterday about how small stores in ethnic urban neighborhoods are growing, since they cater regionally to their specific neighborhood’s taste.
What do you think? Should I start job hunting anytime soon?
Many years ago, in high school, I worked at an outfit that did electronic drafting. I was pretty much a gofer, changing the ammonia in the blueprint machine and so forth.
There was a fellow there named Glenn who was the center of the whole operation. He designed circuit boards. He would gaze at a schematic with several dozen chips on it for days. Suddenly, he would pick up a double-ended red/blue pencil and begin drawing the actual paths that the foil would follow on the finished circuit board. It was an amazing talent he had: imagine, figuring out how to get thousands of connections where they need to go, without crossing each other, in two dimensions with minimal “feed-throughs” (little holes that connect the top to the bottom). Once he finished, two women would make photo-ready masters of the boards using red and blue cellophane tape on clear plastic, based on his red and blue pencil lines and the masters would be sent off to the print shop to be photographed.
I haven’t even been remotely close to that industry since I left there after high school, so I don’t know how this work is done today; I can only imagine that companies are probably dumping $30K down on a fancy software package that does all of the work that Glenn did, only faster and more accurately.
Boy I hope he migrated to some more open-ended field.
How come “RIAA Exec” isn’t on the list?
It probably was, but the list’s compiler chickened out at the last minute and replaced it with “Barber”.
The distinction between barber and hairdresser strikes me as being too fine to matter.
I am very, very skeptical of any claim that computers are going to put people out of jobs. In my experience, computers have not reduced dependency on human effort.
Rick: Eh, you’ve just mentioned a job that’s been replaced: computers. As in, people who take large lists of numbers and compute them. Computers have been replaced by … you guessed it. Right down to the name.
Ye gods…
Was this list written in 1998? Back when computers were going to make every menial job obsolete, and everyone was going to be a megazillionaire CEO of their own startup company? Because it sure reads like it. My employer has done extensive studies into the replacement of human sales or customer service jobs by computer functions. Customers hate it. Only about 30% are satisfied by the experience.
Of course, MSN is a Microsoft product, and Microsoft sells the software and solutions that would be making these people obsolete. Conflict of interest? Naaaw. This article reminds me why the first thing I do with every new computer I use is switch the IE homepage away from MSN.
There is another massive reason that I don’t see this (or “middle men”) going anytime soon.
Someone has to own and have the inventory. Manufacturers have absolutely no desire whatsoever to keep massive inventories of their own product wherever it may be needed. That costs them money, and lots of it. End users either have no need for large quantites (Joe Schmoe wants 1 item that costs $10), or cannot afford to keep their own large inventories of product (a steelmill isn’t interested in keeping $1 million worth of spare parts in their warehouse).
Hence, there will always (IMHO) around to inventory product, the Middle Man.
Have you seen Bill Gates hair lately? Does anyone at MS know what a barber is?
If word processors are on the way out, that would explain the complete disappearance of temporary assignments for me. Looks like I’ve pretty much outlived my usefulness to society. 
…bah! There is a huge difference between barbers and hairdressers!!! I only go to Barbers-they cut my hair how I like it… (can I have a number two on the sides, and a trim on the top…) I too would probably resort to shaving my own head if Barber’s went out of business…
Lame
Like i want to live in a world with no cashiers or bank tellers. I’m libel to crowbar the automatic checkout machines since they are annoying as crap.
Heh, this whole thing reminds me of MS’s “We Care” ads. :rolleyes: Come on, guys, you’re out to make a profit, same as everyone else. I do like the Orwellian touches in their “dot net” (or whatever it is) ad, which has the record label knowing the e-mail address of everyone who bought a particular CD! M$ is running an ad campaign which says, “We’ll give you the tools to spam people!” and no one’s bitching about it! (I know it might seem cool that you’re getting an e-mail telling you that the band who’s CD you just bought is coming to town soon, but think about it for a moment: How many times have you bought a CD for a band that you hate as a gift for a SO/friend? Do you really want to know that said band is coming to town? Because if your friend/SO happens to see said e-mail, guess what you’re going to be dragged into doing? Not to mention if you and said SO have just had a nasty break-up, are you going to want a reminder of him/her showing up in your in-box when you least expect it? I thought not.)