The Future of Work

It’s quite uncanny to read McLuhan’s 1964 statement:
“the electronic age seems to be abolishing the fragmented and specialist form of work called jobs and restoring us to the non-specialized and highly involved form of human dedication called roles.”
Roles are trickier than jobs…requiring more passion, more personality, more skills. This is fine for those of us sophisticated communicators who can easily adapt and configure ourselves to whatever performance is required. The ones I worry about are those who have not developed such an impressive rainbow of talents.
Forty years after McLuhan’s prophetic words, our federal government has researched career trends. They tell us the "Just in Time Workforce" is where all the action is. (As we increasingly must “network” our way into opportunities, I hope we retain the ability to value even those friendships that don’t have a potential cash value.)
You will be expected to drop into a company, perform a role, and get out. How the role is fulfilled will depend on the unique skill set you bring to the task. You will be highly involved in using all of your talents and abilities to deliver the maximum value to your employer in the shortest time possible.
In other words, the “Just in Time” workforce has their skill marrow sucked dry by the corporation and are quickly spit out. It just sounded so much more exciting when McLuhan said it.

References:
McLuhan, Marshall, Cybernetics and Human Culture (1964) MIT Press