7.07.2006

Farming data

I think what's frustrating about modern jobs, at least in a technologically-advanced society, is the amount of data that has to be organized (and analyzed, if you're lucky). So the result is an entire day spent in front of a computer in a cubicle in a climate-controlled environment with windows that can never open (if you're lucky enough to be near a window).

I'm not in that situation, but I have been, and when I was looking for non-teaching jobs, it seemed that a lot of them were like that. Just look at the job descriptions in the classifieds, and you'll see a lot of organizing of data. Boring. Which is why a lot of people go online to get away from the monotony.

I call it "farming data". Of course, there is farming data out there, but that refers to data about agriculture. My term "farming data" makes the "farming" a verb instead of a noun.

Think about it: if you're working in a cubicle or alone at a desk, aren't you given tasks that require you to farm data? It's inescapable today.

2 comments:

Jon Konrath said...

I always associated farming data as actually extracting it from the "wild". All of the chopping and sorting work is more like "cooking" data. Of course, depending in your employer, you might be doing more cooking than usual.

Anonymous said...

If you're cooking it, then you'd be creating something out of all the data, which a lot of jobs don't allow you to do.