Hallo,
i hope I am not boring you all to death! However, with the latest
incarnations of prizmo 2 and Text Grabber, I am looking to find their various
strengths. Without a doubt, I still like the immediacy of the TG interface and
often find it perfectly adequate to the task. However, when I tried a
comparison shot taken from a magazine page, with 2 columns and with the added
difficulty of a headline situated in the centre, displacing the text to either
side, I discovered that Text Grabber got seriously confused and pplanted a
sackfull of carots half way down each column. Whereas, Prizmo 2 did an
excellent job! I can only deduce from this that Prizmo 2 still has the better,
that is, more sophisticated, OCR engine. For letters etc, there is nothing to
choose between them, but when you need more intelegent OCR functionality, I
must say that prizmo 2 is the one to use.
Happy scanning, and here, as always, is an offering, this time from Prizmo
2.
Temping in the city in my college holidays for me means three things: easy
money, a relief from Cambridge stress and jobs which usually involve no more
mental strain than thinking of what to wear the next day. Yet one night,
sitting on the commuter coach, ploughing through the rush hour traffic, out of
London and into
the suburbs, I began to wonder what temping meant for others.
I had noticed immediately that most of the temping agencies were staffed by
women. These seemed to be wellpresented, attractive girls in their mid twenties
with pleasant manners who dealt with temps as they applied for work.
There were rarely men doing
these jobs; instead, the male
members of staff seemed in
managerial positions or would go
out to companies in which temps
worked, in order to liaise with
clients. The majority of temps,
too, were women. They ranged
from twenty year old secretaries bored with their previous employment to forty
year old mothers returning to work when children were of school age, but
despite this variation they were predominantly assigned to low-scale clerical
and secretarial positions. In most cases this meant that female temps were
either directly or indirectly subordinate to men, thus reinforcing the "office
bimbo" image of working women and the stereotypical image of the female temp.
What is even more damaging than this image is the reality of the temp's working
situation. In a temporary assignment, unlike a permanent job, there is little
room for promotion, so the women who temp are often left with little chance to
develop their skills, even though these might already be quite substantial, l
also came into contact with women who had excellent educational qualifications
which were not utilised in their temping jobs. One girl l met, Natalia, temping
while travelling, had an excellent university degree, yet was still placed in a
low scale clerical position, subordinate to male supervisors with half her
skill and intelligence. This was not the only type of discrimination. In one
company l was assigned to, working in the share issues department of a large
bank, there was a fairly even mix of male and female temps, mostly students.
Even "on the job" the male temps were placed in the more prestigious positions
whereas the girls were confined to filing, sorting and coffee-making.
Thus I became aware that temping, and the practices associated with it,
directly contributed to women's disadvantage in the workplace. Yet l noticed
another side to temping, that is the positive aspects it gave women, which must
not be overlooked.
Feminists have been eager to point out that the breaks women take from work, to
have children disrupt their careers. However, women who temp are able to take a
break from work whenever they feel. One such woman, Karen, was working for a
few weeks while her husband was at home, looking after her baby. Thus, by
temping she was saved from part- time work for little money or home work.
temptation -a look at office temping
The skills temps have are not easily devalued and aided by cross-training
schemes at temping agencies women are quickly able to regain their confidence
in the labour market.
This allows women who temp the freedom to work whenever they want, and although
this may raise theoretical problems, in reality temping is ideal for women who
want to work and spend time with their families.
I also noticed that temping is used by younger women to find suitable jobs for
temporary assignments often become permanent. Temps are often freed from the
nightmare of sexual harassment, being able to terminate jobs whenever they
feel. Alternatively, if a temp likes a job she may apply for the permanent
position. One temp I spoke to, Michaela, had left her previous unsatisfactory
job and was one the verge of finding another which she preferred with the
insurance agency for whom she was temping. I felt this gave women like Michaela
more choice, yet, paradoxically, Michaela's job was one of the least skilled,
involving photocopying, filing and coffeemaking for predominantly male
insurance brokers and underwriters.
Another interesting factor about temping is the financial aspect. A competent
temp, skilled in typing or wordprocessing, can earn up to £7 or £8 an hour, £9
or £10 for legal secretarial. One temp I met did just this. Not only did she
command very high rates, but had all the qualities of a female executive,
exhibiting professionalism in the jobs she chose and the way she carried them
out. She was, however, the exception rather than the rule, and although she had
been temping for over five years, most women are eager to leave the often
unpredictable world of temping. Moreover, temps are often aware that the
agencies earn at least an equal amount from their labour, and while the staff
of such agencies may form an unconscious female support group for women workers
they are effectively paid out of their earnings.
Thus while the glossy advertisements in tube-stations present glamorous images
of the female employee freed from the restraints of long hours, and two weeks
holiday a year, the reality to temping is somewhat different, as I found out.
The small amount of responsibility is traded for the perpetuation of the
"bimbo" image or a more sinister sexual side of temping whereby the "feminine"
temp may unconsciously fuel sexual harassment in the office. Yet measured
against this must be the freedom which temping gives, liberating women from the
claustrophobia of home and children. However, all the thoughts and opinions
expressed here are from my own account. You would be quite right to see my
views as being narrow in perspective in limiting my subject matter to temporary
employment in the city of London. For it is not just the position of women in
one sector of the employment market which is at stake, it is the occupational
structure as a whole, and society's attitudes and conceptions of women and
their working lives which are at the heart of the issue•
andrea felsted i corridor 23
Sent from my iPhone
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