Emily Burke

Per ¾

4/11/07

From Keyboard to Computer

Gloria Griskevitch, working mother, came into the office half an hour early everyday to learn how to use her office’s Macintosh. Born in Chicago December 5^th, 1931, and raised in California since age five, she grew up knowing how to type, and had held many secretarial jobs in which she would do nothing but print out long-hand letters or parts lists on a typewriter. But it was this new technology, the computer, that was strange and unknown to her. Frustrated by its lack of user-friendly capabilities, she struggled simply to open up a crude, early version of the word processors we have today, let alone use the application itself. Now, age seventy-five, she lives comfortably in retirement in Granada Hills with her sister, dog, and faithful Compaq computer that she uses every day to email her friends and family, look for interesting recipes, and play her favorite card games all from the comfort of her own home. But even now, years later, she remembers the struggle it took to become a computer adept, and how much better it has made her life and the lives of those around her…

I learned how to type at Bancroft Junior High, around 1943 or the early forties, long before there were electronic typewriters. My first job that required the use of a typewriter was when I worked for Lockheed, probably in the fifties, ’55 or ’56. I would type in part numbers that were twelve to fifteen digits, and it was really hard. Later on in within the same company I was transferred, then I was doing letters and so on.

I didn’t start using an electric typewriter until probably in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. I was doing letters, mostly, and reports, that sort of thing. The first thing I remember is trying to get used to the amount of pressure that you need to put on the keys. When I first started to use an electric typewriter I would hit a key and get fourteen a’s or s’s. So I had to adjust physically to the electric typewriter, since I was used to putting the pound and a half of pressure on the old manual typewriter, and hitting the return, or physically taking hold of the return for the carriage. So it was quite a difference, I had to readjust. It was also much easier to erase. It was more efficient, and the time issue came into play; you could work faster, once I got used to it I could type faster. I like to think that my increased efficiency made me more valuable in the workplace. It did make it possible to do other tasks in the business, whatever you were assigned to do. It definitely gave you more time to do other things, or assist in other ways.

The first computers didn’t affect my life much. I actually thought before I learned to use the computer that I would never have to bother with the computer. I thought that I was so close to retirement and that I would never need one or use one. It only affected my life when one day the director of the agency came in and told me that I was going to be using the computer. I believe the first time I used a computer for business was around 1993 or ’94. I suppose you would call me administrative assistant to the operations director, and that was when I was first introduced to the computer. At that time I said ‘but, I don’t know anything about a computer’ and she said ‘well, you’re going to learn’ and so I came into the office a half an hour early before any body else every day and I learned how to use the computer and the marketing director who had a Mac had another one put in his office and would give me assignments and show me how to do something and I would go in and start doing what I had to do for business. I had to learn how to get into certain programs and how to do the input in the proper way for instance I used to do bulk mailings and I had to learn, I didn’t know at that time that you could just put it into your computer and press a button practically and the whole mailing list would come out, preprinted on labels and things like that, that really made it a lot easier, with 3,000 names for a bulk mailing.

In 1994 I purchased a Mac Performa. I used it for email, and I used to do greeting cards, and send letters with borders. It was for pleasure for the home computer. I had a wonderful bridge game, which I cannot find now. I played games, I wrote letters, I had a print shop program, I was able to get onto AOL, 3.0 was the highest I could get, so I was pretty limited, but at that time that was the going thing. Occasionally, I did some kind of research like recipes. I can’t remember exactly but occasionally looking something up that would catch my interest, someone would tell me about a web site to check out. Occasionally I was able to bring work home that I could do on my computer because in the office they were using Macs and I had just begun to learn to use the computer in the office, so if I was a little frazzled and work was piling up I could bring some home and do layouts, or outlines, of what I needed to do, making it easier for my work day. I wasn’t required to have a computer at home; it was personal choice. It was my choice to make things easier sometimes to do a few things at home. I didn’t have to work at home that much but it made my day easier. I had permission to bring a floppy home so I could do certain things.

Now I have a HP PC, which is about two years old. It’s the only computer I bought since the Mac, and I had that for a long time, and I also have a laptop, a Compaq, which I don’t use that often, which I thought I needed for a motor home, because I’m often in a motor home, but I don’t use it as well. The computer is the retiree’s best friend. You have games, you have something to do if you’re bored. I don’t watch as much television; sometimes I would rather be on the computer. I have a couple of favorite games, I check my email. I do stuff. I send, I don’t know, maybe a dozen emails a week. I use email to touch base with people, to let them know that I’m thinking of them in just a few words, instead of spending fifteen or twenty minutes on the phone. And it might be people that I really wouldn’t pick up the phone and call but I do email. also I think it lets them know that you are out there and that you do think of them. I think of it as a positive and not a negative.

I enjoy having a computer. I think that it makes you more cognizant of what is going on in the world. The drawback of the computer is that you don’t spend as much time reading or even using the newspaper because a lot of times you get the news before its even printed on your computer. I would say that the computer is really responsible for not reading as much and I did enjoy reading, but there are a lot of things that I could find on the computer that were also in books. However, I still go to books for certain things. It makes you rely on the computer, or rely less on books and it does open up new horizons, new vistas as far as researching. It enabled me to find recipes that I thought were lost to me, and so it was really interesting, what I could do. And I probably tried some things that I hadn’t done before, or new ways of doing an old recipe. It was very interesting.