Download November 2015 Maths Paper 2 Memo ((LINK))

Here's a hypothesis for discussion:

Desktop computers and other office automation (email and voice mail) and the virtual elimination of clerical and secretarial positions during the 1980s and 1990s have increased the clerical content of contracting work. Today's GS-1102 and industry counterpart does more clerical work than their predecessors of the late 1970s or early 1980s, and thus have less time for professional work.

To illustrate:

In the mid-1970s a contracting officer would have composed a memo using paper and pencil and then handed it to a GS-05 clerk or secretary to proof, format, and type. The contracting officer would have done perhaps one edit and then the clerk or secretary would have typed it in final form for signature. Today, a GS-12 or GS-13 contracting officer composes/proofs/formats/types the memo without any help from a clerk or secretary. Because word processing software encourages the pursuit of document perfection, the contracting officer probably does more than one edit and spends as much or more time on the memo than the contracting officer and the clerk combined would have spent twenty years ago. Thus, the government is incurring a higher average cost for the same work.

Similarly, systems for the electronic preparation and submittal of forms and form-like documents -- such as DD Form 350s and solicitations -- demand near perfection by rejecting the document until prepared in conformity with the software protocol. Since GS-1102s are expected to prepare these forms on their desktop computers, which is essentially a clerical task, they end up spending more time doing it than they would have done in the past, as they seek to get the system to accept submissions that do not conform to the software's requirements.

Thus, as a result of office automation, contracting officers and contract specialists are expected to use their desktop computers to do work that a clerk or secretary would have done in the past. Some people think that this has improved productivity, but my hypothesis is that office automation and the elimination or severe reduction of clerical and secretarial postitions has diluted the professional content of 1102 work, thereby making it less satisfying and attractive, and increased the cost of clerical and secretarial work.