The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
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The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
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Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#2In some ultra-low power distance societies, places like Sweden, the idea that anyone, no matter how important, is ever entitled to an assistant or secretary is almost anathema.
Imagine if von Neumann had been required to do all of that in addition to making his own airline and hotel reservations, as is the case for many university professors these days.
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#3The original this is taken from is better [0].
0. https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/2...
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#4In some ultra-low power distance societies, places like Sweden, the idea that anyone, no matter how important, is ever entitled to an assistant or secretary is almost anathema. Imagine if von Neumann had been required to do all of that in addition to making his own airline and hotel reservations, as is the case for many university professors these days.
In Sweden and in other places, everything, including the universities, is nowadays run by economists. Since university professors don't produce anything that has any immediate monetary value it of course make perfect sense to save money by replacing administrative personel that costs money with the professors time, which is free since the professors pay their own sallaries with external funding.
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#5I wonder how long his assistants lasted.
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#6It is worth noting that Paul Halmos was an assistant of von Neumann's:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Halmos.h...
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#7In some ultra-low power distance societies, places like Sweden, the idea that anyone, no matter how important, is ever entitled to an assistant or secretary is almost anathema. Imagine if von Neumann had been required to do all of that in addition to making his own airline and hotel reservations, as is the case for many university professors these days.
Could you confirm that first statement?
That is, when I visited Sweden for a consulting job about 15 years ago, there was definitely a secretary for the group I visited. She helped organize the paperwork for the visit, booked my hotel and taxi, etc.
The word for secretary in Swedish is "sekreterare", and a search of the Uppsala University domain find things like https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=y&prev... :
> Being the Secretary-General's secretary means helping coordinate, plan and prepare meetings, travel and reception of foreign and domestic guests as well as coordinate, prepare and plan other commitments. For example, involve helping to prepare information, book and plan trips and meetings, and to be responsible for the calendar as well as ex. certain world surveillance.
> You will also be responsible for calls, mailing and agenda appointments, and telephone answering services as well as daily office tasks such as copying, billing, updating of records, ordering office supplies, and providing easier computer support, etc.
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#8In some ultra-low power distance societies, places like Sweden, the idea that anyone, no matter how important, is ever entitled to an assistant or secretary is almost anathema. Imagine if von Neumann had been required to do all of that in addition to making his own airline and hotel reservations, as is the case for many university professors these days.
The idea that anyone is entitled to a secretary, that a secretary is a kind of status symbol, is rightfully falling out of fashion, and not just in Sweden.
But it's not being replaced by nothing, it being replaced by (non-personal) function staff that offloads specific tasks. The department has student relations officers that deal with scheduling, enrollment, tracking grades etc, the university has a travel office, email and digital calendars, available on mobile devices, simply removes a significant part of the need for secretaries in the first place - and professors have TAs (who would probably be responsible for a good chunk of the tasks described today). They just don't have general-purpose personal staff.
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#9While academia is a place of good ideas and discussions, the power-distance and the use of students as very cheap labour with the promise of a higher place of importance someday is a dark side of it
Low skilled workers are treated better and more fairly than Graduate Students in a lot of occasions
Re: The duties of John von Neumann's assistant (1993)
#10The original this is taken from is better [0]. 0. https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/2...
It __is__ better. It helps him explain his case as to why he chose to accept the Cutting Travelling Fellowship rather than work for Von Neumman, and he also mentions that the job was later split into 4 parts.
The original link on the other hand just dismisses this as "he fled to Hungary". True, but an incomplete truth.