What Jobs Will Be Around in 20 Years?

Posted by Frank W. Hardy Nov 10, 2009

My first passenger and paternal grandmother, whose body gave out 4 years ago at the age of 104, often told me about the way things were. A time when families desired nothing more than a swift horse and a sturdy buggy and a wire next to a railroad track was considered “instant” communication.

We talked for hours about the past and what she saw come to fruition in her life (including her grandson becoming one of those magnificent men in a flying machine.) But her gaze never focused on that past! She explained, as only she could in all her beauty, the paradigms of the future and the fear it brings.

Halley’s Comet and the Telescope

Nana, as five generations of grandchildren called her, explained to me the universal awe of the future. Seeing Halley’s Comet in 1910 at the inspiring age of 5, she proclaimed, “People were scared. None of us knew about Einstein and only preachers and your Great-Uncle Grant understood the heavens.”

My Uncle Grant (43 years Nana’s senior and a self educated former slave) was the Hardy family’s Einstein at the turn of the century. In 1986 Nana called and reminded me of her future predictions – my very small Meade telescope proved her correct.

The Fear of Change

Nana used the old Negro phrased, usurped in the movie Guess Whose Coming to Dinner, “Franklin when we started seeing those Tin Lizzies rolling the streets of Conshohocken, all hell done broke loose with those blacksmiths for no dag-burn reason.”

Nana knew that future jobs would be plentiful; however, the paradigm would only benefit those who understood the future. She saw those blacksmiths become auto mechanics. Train conductors become air traffic controllers. Buggy salesmen became car salesmen and those bicycle guys (Orville and Wilbur) became pilots.

She had no idea what the future jobs would be, but she knew they would benefit those fastidious enough to grab them.