How has technology impacted your employment? Do you feel like it has helped and made things better and easier or do you feel like it's damaging?
With my job, I feel like technology has helped in some ways. There have been many advances that have and will continue to help with diagnosing/treating certain conditions but with technology comes failure too. If the systems go down, we do have a protocol but it makes everything so much harder and takes twice as long to do something that we used technology for. I feel like it can also take away from face to face time with providers which is not good because that does not help build a good rapport.
The impacts of technology on employment are in both negative and positive ways. Automation of many tasks in many industries has led to job losses for people. In the other way round, technology has also created new jobs that didn't exist before now. Jobs in data science and cybersecurity didn't exist before now. It is technology that created them.
Not everyone has a computer and the internet at home. Some people have to go to the library to use the computer and internet just to fill out an employment application or post your stuff on Linkedin or whatever.
My job is trying to implement things more digitally these days. Within the last few years, they've moved a lot of things to digital platforms that can be accessed only at work, and they've upgraded our register systems to newer software and even put a card only register in the grooming salon. Unfortunately, the devices we use and the technology we have is... not good, to put it simply. Things crash on a regular basis or load slowly, and it becomes more of a frustration than a benefit. We have work arounds for these things, but it overall becomes a frustration and a stressful situation.
I think one of the more annoying ones we have that can be used on a regular basis is an AI helper that we can access on store devices, and it can be very unhelpful sometimes. We're supposed to be able to ask a question, and the helper will give us an answer and even links to policies or other documents that we can further reference for additional information. It'd be great, except you have to ask a question very specifically in the way it wants you to do it, or it'll basically say "I don't know." I could say "parakeet habitat set up" to it, and it'd say "I don't know," but if I said "how do I set up a parakeet habitat?" it would give me all the information I need and links to documents for additional information. One of the better advancements though is we're finally allowed to use telehealth as an option for vet appointments for non-critical issues. It's been great when our in store vet can't get us in because it's convenient and we have several associates who don't drive, so we're not having the added stress of trying to make arrangements to make sure we have staffing to pick up and take animals to the vet when they need to go.
I did have a job interview today though at a vet office, and the interviewer was telling me about how they've gone paperless and largely rely on technology to do things, which I thought was interesting. They even told me they have an option to send text messages to clients! I don't know too many specifics (but will learn more on Wednesday when I go back for shadowing!), but I did enjoy hearing about how they're integrating technology into their practice!
