RE: Typing requirement in a tech writing ad - how to respond?

["France Baril" <France -dot- Baril -at- ixiasoft -dot- com>]

Ok... well I know kids are now learning how to type now in high school, but when I was there, it was not an option for women nor men. I think my generation was between the dactylo age and the computer age.

Is it just the vapors from all the chemicals in our new office, or am I not making sense when I write this morning!?

-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- fiam -dot- net]
Sent: 11 septembre, 2003 09:29
To: France Baril
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Typing requirement in a tech writing ad - how to respond?




France Baril wrote:

>Why don't you just test your self at home? Find a text, retype it during 5 minutes and count the words and mistakes. 
>
>As to why they are asking for this requirement, I'd say they want a woman (men were not taught how to type until very recently) 
>

France,

I have no idea whether that is true in Quebec, but typing classes have 
been open to people of both sexes in all parts of the US that I'm 
familiar with for many decades. I took typing in the summer of 1961 and, 
while the instructor was a woman (as were most schoolteachers), the 
class was not predominantly female. My dad was not offered a typing 
class by the US Army in WW II only because his two-finger typing speed 
was high enough to pass the course exit exam (and so he never did learn 
to touch-type).

Dick