A self-starter rises to computer management

Press, 28 March 1980, Page 10

A self-starter rises to computer management

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LEONE STEWART

Employment is predicted to be the major issue for women in this decade. World recession threatens. The age of the computer and associated new office technology is revolutionising the once safe haven of the office job for women. Computer ’ advocates always argue that these advances do not. limit jobs. They say the com-, outer creates more jobs.

But computers certainly can change the nature of the work. For many women the arrival of the office computer and wdrd-processing machines has taken what creative thinking they once did out of their job. Most women working with computers are employed at the keyboard, push-button end. The machine does most of their thinking. Many now say the magic new machines are making the job boring. Ann Clark is a 27-year-old who has worked her way into the management ranks in the computer industry. She works as a deputy manager for a big wholesale distributing company in Christchurch, She is responsible for • its large computer installation, leading a staff of six operators. , Talking to a meeting of the Christchurch branch of the National Organisation for Women recently Mrs Clark described herself as a self-starter. She is optimistic about the computer age.

Her six years in the data processing industry have been spent learning. Making things happen for yourself is. she advises, the key to success. ‘‘You could say I am an example of what can be done by someone with no university degree, or any impressive sounding qualifications,’’ he said. Her first contact with computers came in 1973, in Auckland. Then she

made the shrewd, coolheaded decision that this was the “coming thing.” She had a “fairly basic” education. Career’ prospects in nursing no longer satisfied her. “So I found out how one could become a computer person. The first step was to enrol in a Polythechnic course designed for new* comers to computers. After 18 months of night classes she had a good basis for “understanding the game.”. Simultaneously, . by answering a newspaper advertisment, she. got a job - operating a. . “minicomputer.” Three months later her supervisor.’left. . “I was given the responsibility for three months until they found a replacement. I was determined they would not. At that point I was in a nice comfortable job, in a nice comfortable office. But I was not going to stop learning,”-

Much of her knowledge she picked up on the job. She learnt about new computers. She taught herself how to programme in two languages. Mrs Clark stayed in that job for three years. Her second position was with a much smaller company.

“I had to sell myself into that job. What I didn’t know, when I start-

ed I made an effort to learn quickly.” It was a crash course in re-programming a computer new to her, in a new language. Dryly she says: “It was an interesting first month.” Women can have, she believes, an advantage in the computer industry: “We think, and work, logically.” Although her staff is female, on the management level Ann Clark deals almost entirely with men.

In her experience computer installation has not meant a reduction in staff mangaement frequently expected. But it has brought changes in job descriptions, and change in roles. She considers that it requires metre disciplined work: “You have to be a lot better at your job to retain it these days.” In computers women are a new element in a

new industry. Prejudice against women in manage* rhent positions is not ingrained. “Women have no traditional role, so men don’t have the same preconceived notions about what we should be doing.” But women, she warns, will have to take their work seriously. They will have to be prepared to work the shifts necessary to keep expensive computer systems working to their full capacity.

“In my experience women can be their own worst enemies in the work world.”

As virtually “a woman alone” in her work Ann Clark finds she has got to be not just good but far better than most of the men in order to “to survive.”

Some of the women at the meeting obviously objected to Ann Clark’s approach to dressing for the job. She is an attractively softly-spoken divorcee, stylish in an understated way. She knows that the business dress code for men is often, in fact, more rigidly enforced for men than for women. She is intent on presenting a professional appearance. When she is presenting a case to a meeting she makes sure her appearance is up-to-scratch: “If the men want to spend the meeting staring at my feet, or whatever, that’s O.K. I just want them to agree to what I’m putting across.”-