Is touch typing useful?

Sep 25, 2005 by Naomi.

Last week I thought about what made computerwork easier and surprisingly the most basic skill that came to mind was touch typing. Many times executives who input all their reports for secretaries painstakinly use the hunt and peck method with forefingers on both hands. What a time waster! Imagine a CEO or a manager at any level, who makes an awful lot more money than the secretary or clerk who files the information, taking time to hunt and peck instead of adding creative and innovative ideas to save money for investors. Maybe the words being put onto the computer are exactly those innovative ideas and should be put into verbal directives toward action.

So what’s my point? Touch typing is the point. The alphabet placement on a keyboard has not changed since the introduction of the typewriter so learning to type with ten fingers has been a skill taught for more than fifty years. Shop classes were opened to girls in high school and cooking classes were opened to boys making gender no longer an issue in generic skills. Many crossovers occurred. Sometimes classes were taken to raise the percentage of contacts between boys and girls. One of the many such occasions where the boy chasing girls paid off was in the programmer field. Imagine how much the programmer who could touch type had the advantage over one who had to hunt and peck!

Typing skills may have more uses than meets the eye but I’m promoting touch typing for everyone who can spare a few months to learn. My lack of skill was an embarrassment to me when I went back into the workforce at age 42. I interviewed for a position of graphic artist and presented a formidible portfolio of my art work. The interviewer was mildly impressed and casually asked, “Can you type?” Of course I said yes because I had taken a typing class twenty-five years earlier. I didn’t think it was important to add that I passed with a “D” or indicated that my skills scraped the bottom. I was interviewing for my artistic ability, after all.

At the time, charts and graphs were drawn by people who had bonafied
AA degrees in the graphic arts and a typist added the callouts, the identifying
indicators on the drawings, with a typewriter outfitted with a special
font. I was put into a group of artists as a temporary employee. This
was and still is the practice of trying out not only the technical skills
of a new employee but also the personality and people skills for a good
“fit” with the regular staff. Within two months I became a “permanent”
emplyee and a month later it was announced that a new unit was being formed
in a different location. Well imagine my disappointment when I was placed
in that new unit as the typist.

Because it was an untried location, the graphic artist and I had few clients to begin with so I had time to reacquaint myself with the keyboard - I hadn’t touched one in twenty five years - and I had almost completely forgotten the touch method which I had not learned well in the first place. The position was a challenge which I met satisfactorily. Luckily new technology came along and my real skills were recognized so I moved away and up in the company where I remained for twenty years.

I was probably lucky that I couldn’t type. I saw proficient typists take different paths within the communications department and I’m glad I didn’t go there. It has taken years to gain a touch typing skill mostly because I am compelled to write and need word processing skills as never before. Learn the skill. You’ll never know where it might lead.

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