Is your job important?

[Eater Sundae]

I agree and this was in the day bin men actually lifted the bin bags running after the bin lorry and having to throw them like a javelin into the lorry. Nowadays the van does all the work. Bin men stand hands in pockets waiting on the lorry doing the work.

 

---------- Post added 11-08-2015 at 00:17 ----------

 

Sorry Honey cant empty the bin because the lid is open half an inch!. Lol…. I would love to go back to the real working days chasing the van slowly creeping the length of the street while you had to RUN and throw bags into the back.

 

I cannot speak for every area of Sheffield, but I see 3 areas on a regular basis while they are having their bin emptied. In all three cases the bin men are collecting bins at a jog and putting them on and off the wagon. OK, they no longer have to throw the rubbish into the back of the van, but they are certainly not stood around. I don't know how long each round lasts, but the parts I've seen is still hard, physical work at the rate they are doing it.

[hicksy3]

Quote:

 

Originally Posted by tinfoilhat

 

So would the world stop if your job disappeared?

 

If my industry disappeared (and it would have to do so globally), probably the most important knock-on effect is that a very sizeable chunk of global R&D spend (in all STEM -and more- fields, including pharma in particular) would slow to a trickle, if not eventually disappear. Technological progress of some sort would continue of course, because to invent is an inherently human activity...but at a significantly slower pace.

 

My job wouldn't exist if it weren't for the legal principles and statutes under which, if you invent something worthwhile, you can get a time-limited commercial monopoly for your invention. But if such legal principles and statutes didn't exist, arguably we'd be nowhere near as technologically advanced as we are today as a society, because industries wouldn't have invested in R&D to the same extent historically. Virtuous or vicious circle? I'm still not sure myself, tbh. That's a philosophical debate that has long raged within our industry, still very much undecided one way or the other, likely for ever and more.

 

In that context, I can say hand on heart that I have saved the existence of several businesses and the livelihood of their employees caught in sticky legal situations over the years, but that's just doing the job right and well. Nothing another person suitably qualified and experienced couldn't have done. The job market says, still to this day, that we're rare and therefore expensive. I'm not sure that makes the job important per se, personally I just see it as a measure of the difficulty of the job.

 

So, not sure whether any of that makes the job important in and of itself. For me, much like the above poem, it's about doing right and doing good, and training the next generation (trainees) well to do at least as good.

Ah, you're a patent attorney!

 

 

 

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