Here I am at the front desk of a large, metropolitan/suburban library.
It's all right. I am helping people, but with enough time to reflect upon the job at hand.
In the early days of this job I did what none of the patrons could do for themselves. It was tedious. And we were understaffed.
Slowly automation came and improved everything. At this point a patron can do very close to everything they could possibly need to at the library by themselves.
So now the major part of my job at the desk is helping people do things that they could do for themselves, but, for a vast, mostly sad variety of reasons, aren't able to; I render remedial computer assistance.
Is this bad?
No.
In the end helping people do something no one can do versus helping people do something everyone else can do feels weirdly similar.
And, most importantly, there's much less of the latter.
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