The Gazette 1982

GAZETTE

APRIL 1982

Reality:

How much time a machine must go to justify its

cost depends on how much the machine costs,

how much your labor costs and how much the

machine is saving. If an automatic typewriter

costs 25 percent of an operator's salary and in-

creases output by a third, you're ahead of the

game. You can pick up some excellent recondi-

tioned equipment for a few thousand dollars

and, if you use it right, you can significantly in-

crease the productivity of a secretary whose

salary and fringe costs are likely to be well into

five figures. See my article"How Much Will an

Automatic Typewriter Save?"

Myth:

You should get ready for "word processing" by

examining the documents that are coming into

your typing facility to determine what kind of

automatic typing equipment will best produce

them.

Reality:

Later. First let's examine the documents to see if

they could be

designed

in some better way.

Could this dictated text have been in part pre-

recorded? Could this name and address have

been captured as a byproduct of a prior typing?

Could this printed form have been tied into a tab

grid? Could the format of this multi-indented,

tri-columnar, single-double spaced intermix have

been simplified? Could the document have been

structured in a way that groups variables in one

section and text without variables in another?

Could it have been designed so that part of it

could have been generated by selecting from

among stored paragraphs? Unless documents

are examined for better ways of structuring them

initially, your work will continue to come into

your word processing facility in the same old

way. Don't be like the pilot who announces that

his plane is making excellent time, but that he's

been going in the wrong direction.

Myth:

If you can afford the extra cost it's better to have

a television screen display on your automatic

typewriter so you can see the text being worked

on.

Reality:

There is more involved here than meets the eye.

When you have a TV screen on your typewriter

instead of a roller or platen, the typing or "prin-

ting" part of the machine has to be designed as a

separate unit. Some kinds of work become hard

to do if the keyboard is separated from the

printer. Think how you'd prepare a manuscript

cover, a printed form, an affidavit of service, an

envelope, a return receipt post card or a typed

check on a television screen. Typewriters using

TV displays are excellent tools for

text-editing

applications because you are working with only

one kind of paper stock in your printing unit.

But when you are working with an intermix of

different kinds of paper stock, a stand-alone

automatic typewriter that prints directly onto its

roller may be more versatile.

Myth:

By measuring the quantity of output (lines pro-

duced, etc.) you can judge the effectiveness of

your word processing staff.

Reality:

You can measure only the

quantitative

aspects of

your staff's productivity. The

qualitative

aspects

can only be

judged.

Word processing jobs are an

intermix of both quantitative and qualitative

factors, and many of the qualitative ones are in

no way reflected by measuring output. These in-

clude such abilities as the capacity to resolve am-

biguous, illegible or unclear dictation; to make

intelligent format decisions; to determine the

correct variable information to be added onto

prerecorded materials without having to be told;

to select the correct paper stock when it has not

been indicated, or even when it has been in-

dicated incorrectly; to prepare the customary

number of carbon copies even though no copies

were called for; to know when to consult a dic-

tionary; to be able to handle basic cor-

respondence on one's own; etc. Above all, we

need to have secretarial help that is capable of

understanding how automatic typing equipment

can be made to do all the jobs it's able to do, and

how to design documents and encode magnet if

media appropriately. What's really devastating

is that the clock watching, line counting,

timekeeping efficiency experts with their quanti-

ty thinking may, in fact, be screening out of the

word processing environment the kind of quality

support staff we most need in it.

Myth:

The one lawyer/one secretary arrangement is in-

effective and must be replaced.

Reality:

What's wrong with the one lawyer/one secretary

arrangement is that it's unthought about. Under

some circumstances it may in fact be extremely

effective. Where it is, it should be retained;

where it's not, it should be replaced. But what's

really important is that you ought to be thinking

about alternatives.

What is the ultimate reality? Perhaps it's that there is

no one in charge of

methods.

Individual lawyers and

secretaries do their thing in their own way. Sometimes

well, sometimes poorly, sometimes differently from thf ^

time before. Perhaps it's that no one thinks about how-

each job could have been done better, and no one asks

how the best method could be institutionalized. Perhaps

it's that no one cares about efficiency. Perhaps we delude

ourselves with the belief that we somehow offer a service

so unique that its efficient delivery is of no consequence.

Perhaps that will some day be seen as the ultimate myth.

Bernard Sternin is a systems analyst and consultant in the

fields of word processing and automated typing, par-

ticularly as related to law office practice. An attorney, he

is a co-author of

How to Creat-A-System for the Law

Office,

published by the Section of Economics of Law

Practice.

(Reprinted from "Legal Economics" September/October, 1981, with

kind permission of the publisher, American Bar Association, and the

author.)