Keyboards, Steamships & The Pot Roast Principle

TL/DR: We are often quick to forget who and why we are—preventing us from adapting as circumstances change.

​​Read the full story ⬇︎

 
She cut the ends off the pot roast before placing it into the pan, just as he mother had instructed. Curious, she asked her mother why. “Because that’s the way my mother had done it,” was her reply.
 
Still curious, she called her grandmother and asked the same question, but got the same reply: “Because that’s the way my mother had done it.”
 
Even more curious, she went to the nursing home and asked her great grandmother, and found the origin of the recipe: “Because the roast was always bigger than the pot I had back then. I had to cut off the ends to make it fit.”
 
Graham Hancock muses that we are a species with amnesia—quick to forget who and why we are. Perhaps this is why we keep doing the same things, even after circumstances change, simply because we have forgotten the initial purpose.
 
We don’t have the same problem with steamships, though.
 
Changing circumstances

​When the SS Ruth Alexander pulled into port in Manila, it endured three weeks of bombing before attempting an escape under the cover of darkness. The ruse didn’t work, though, and after being struck by a Japanese plane, the ship sank in the Makassar Strait on January 2, 1942.
 
During its 29 years of service, the steamship was known by many names and used for many purposes.
 
1. Passenger ship. When it was first built in 1913 by Norddeutscher Lloyd, it was the SS Sierra Cordoba—a passenger ship operating between Bremen, Germany and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
 
2. Supply ship. During WW1, it was commandeered by the German Navy to help supply raider ships from the Straits of Magellan.
 
3. Military transport. After being discovered by British forces in 1917, it was interned in Callao, Peru, where it was placed in commission with the United States Navy as the USS Callao—a transport ship to bring military personnel home from Europe.
 
4. Passenger ship. After the war, the ship was sold to Dollar Steamship Lines and renamed SS Ruth Alexander—a passenger ship with stops along the western coast of the United States and Mexico.
 
5. Cargo ship. In 1939, the United States Maritime Commission converted SS Ruth Alexander into a cargo ship for American President Lines—and after arriving in Manila, it soon found its end as a victim of WW2.
 
As circumstances changed, the utility of the ship changed—and one man who served on the USS Callao recognized the shifting utility of an outdated technology, and sought to improve efficiency for typists.
 
Sabotaged engineering

​This story is being typed on a modern laptop computer keyboard; a keyboard layout designed by manufacturer's in 1873 to slow down typists. Back then, when adjacent keys on a typewriter were struck in quick succession, the keys would jam. To prevent this, manufacturers engineered an inefficient keyboard that scattered the most common letters, forcing typists to reduce their efficiency.
 
In the decades that followed, vast technological improvements eliminated the initial jamming problem, but we continue to use a keyboard that sabotages our efficiency despite the change in circumstances.
 
Years later, in a high school computer lab in the 1990’s, I asked my teacher why the keyboard letters are scattered randomly across the board. “It makes typing easier,” she replied.
 
Perhaps she hadn’t read August Dvorak’s book.
 
Efficiency

During WW2, August suggested a new way for sailors to reload their artillery weapons—a suggestion that shaved five seconds off their time—and the Navy adopted it immediately.[1]
 
He didn’t start off as an efficiency consultant, though. During the expedition to capture Pancho Villa, August was wounded, and upon recuperation and discharge, he enlisted in the US Naval Reserve, where he taught mathematics and navigation. During WW1, he served aboard the USS Callao bringing troops home from Europe, and after the war he received a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and became an education professor at the University of Washington.
 
It was there, in 1925, that a typing teacher sought August’s insight into why her students kept messing up simple words, such as: that, which, is, to, be, here, when, and, with, it, of, the, for.[2]
 
Uncommon words with a difficult spelling are common causes for errors in handwriting, but this isn’t the case while typing common easy-to-spell words. August concluded that the errors were simply a problem of mechanics—instances where the typist must execute an excessive amount of jumping back and forth from row to row on the keyboard.
 
Armed with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, August went to work designing a keyboard with simplified mechanics by grouping the most used letters and letter combinations where they are easier to reach, improving both accuracy and speed. In 1936, he published his findings in the book Typewriting Behavior as an in-depth study on the psychology and physiology of typing, where he introduced the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.[3]
 
This new keyboard reduced finger motions between rows by placing the bulk of a typist's work on the home row, where more than 3,000 common words can be typed, resulting in less finger motion, errors, and strain, and increased efficiency.[4]
 
In 1944, the US Navy spent two weeks training fourteen clerks on Dvorak's keyboard, resulting in improved speed and reduced errors. Nineteen years after the initial question was asked, August’s efforts had finally helped us get a bigger pot for our roast.
 
But then again, awareness doesn’t mean acceptance. Afterall, people tend to resist change.
 
Resisting change

Despite the advantages, the Navy decided it wasn’t worth the effort to change keyboards and retrain typists on the new system.[5] After all, traditional keyboards had been the de facto tradition for over 60 years, and millions of people had an interest in avoiding change—including typists, typing teachers, typewriter and computer salespeople, and manufacturers. As Ralph Nader once pointed out:
 
“The typewriter companies and the secretarial schools don't want an increase in productivity. They don't want an office to get the same work out of two typists that used to take three.”[6]
 
Even when circumstances changed, and even when a better way was presented to them, people prefer tradition—as suggested in an opinion in The New York Herald Tribune:
 
“Doubtless the new keyboard would be an improvement. Square eggs would be an improvement, too, but the world somehow continues to adjust itself to the egg-shaped kind.”[7]
 
Despite his efforts, the only lasting contribution for efficiency offered by August was his suggestions for reloading artillery weapons. It’s curious that people are reluctant to change, unless it helps us kill one another more efficiently.
 
New World Symphony

This story is not a ploy to get you to use the Dvorak keyboard (although it is available…check your computer, tablet, and phone settings). Rather, this is a story about awareness, tradition, and curiosity.
 
It is a story about adapting as circumstances change. To have what we have never had, we must be willing to do what we have never done.
 
We don’t have to continue cutting the ends off of our pot roast. We can get a bigger pot—and that bigger pot might already be in the kitchen.
 
As circumstances change, we can change the name and utility of our steamship. August served many roles in his lifetime: efficiency consultant, researcher, inventor, professor, sailor, soldier, husband, father, son, and distant cousin to Antonín Dvořák (composer of The New World Symphony).
 
In his book, August spoke of what he calls intelligent behavior, referring to the adoption of new technologies and techniques in place of previous de facto traditions—a call for adapting to the ever-changing circumstances of our New World. Frustrated by mass unintelligent behavior, though, August once declared:
 
“I'm tired of trying to do something worthwhile for the human race, they simply don't want to change!”[8]
 
But not everyone resists change.
 
Barbara Blackburn failed her high school typing class, but after trying the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she thrived at the skill, and in 1985 she was entered into the The Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest typing speed of 170 words per minute.
 
Ten years after his death, Barbara found a bigger pot for her roast and changed the name of her steamship. And all it took was a new keyboard.
 
Three metaphorical questions​
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1. What keyboard are you using, and how is it helping or hurting you?
2. How has the role and name of your steamship changed over time?
3. Are you still cutting off the ends of your pot roast?

 

Want More?
Jonas Cain, M.Ed. is a storyteller, magician, musician, and facilitator of fascination. Through his company, Hashtag Positivity, he assists individuals, teams, and communities in “Being Well By Living Well” to experience abiding joy. Connect with Jonas today to discuss your challenges, goals, and obstacles: [email protected]

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References
[1] Morgan, L. (2020, March 19). “Dvorak, August (1894-1975).” History Link.  www.historylink.org/File/20997

[2] Morgan, M. (1956). “Dr. Dvorak's better mousetrap.” Unpublished Manuscript. (In possession of Lane Morgan, Bellingham, WA).

[3] Dvorak, A; Merrick, N.; Dealey, W. & Ford, G. (1936). Typewriting Behavior. American Book Company.

[4] Larsen, D. (1985, January 10). “Battle of the typewriter keyboards: Dvorak design offered as alternative to QWERTY.” The Los Angeles Times.

[5] S.L. Fishbein. (1955, November 27). “New keyboard 'liked' in early tests.” The Washington Post.

[6] R. Reid, (1985, March 9). “It may be taps for the QWERTY Keyboard.” The Washington Post.

[7] (1955, November 23). “The changeless typewriter keyboard.” New York Herald Tribune.

[8] Parkinson, R. (1972 November). “The Dvorak simplified keyboard: Forty years of frustration.” Computers & Automation.
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