"Jobs that no longer exist that you . . ." Topic

. . . or a member of your family have performed.

Anecdote?

In the 1940's my mother was a police stenographer. At that time and for some years afterwards, in high-profile cases, the police took stenographers with them to get eyewitness accounts while the events were still fresh in everybody's minds.

On June 20, 1947, she was assigned to go to Virginia Hill's house as a result of the mob hit on one Bugsy Siegel.

JW

My father installed auto seat belts when they were after-market options.

The good old days of graphic arts -- pasting up mechanicals and cutting overlays to separate colors. Now of course everyone and their brother with a computer is an artist, with the concomitant decline in quality.

Was that too bitter?

For six months back in the 50's I worked as a computer doing engineering calculations that were needed with greater precision than a slide rule gave. Monotonous work using 7 figure log tables and reams of paper. This was normally regarded as women's work and given little credit.

Thank goodness for calculators, electronic computers and the metric system.

x42

"Was that too bitter?"

Maybe a little, but thanks for teaching me a new word. Going to have to drop "concomitant" in real life.

When I started in graphics, the newspaper I worked at still did paste-up with X-acto blades and wax machines with type being set on an Agfa machine which spit it out on film.

The occupation of projectionist (something that I've done as well) is nearly obsolete as the switch to digital projection means that one just needs a computer tech to keep things running.

Wyatt

My father apprenticed for machine operator in a factory. Their training dept, called boys' factory, had them spend the first year filing down blades for ships turbines. It couldn't be done by machines yet, and since it was part of their training the boys didn't have to get paid for it.
This was considered a high-status blue collar training before WWII in that area.

Personally, I traveled all over the Netherlands and Flanders to write Antiques Routes for a collectors' magazine, interviewing dealers, taking pics and selling them ads to go with the articles.
I still hold the personal record for most routes written by one person, I think.
The magazine I worked for discontinued them after I left, but I heared that a few years later when somebody called certain shops they were asked immediately when I was coming over again.

When I started in graphics, the newspaper I worked at still did paste-up with X-acto blades and wax machines with type being set on an Agfa machine which spit it out on film.

We had a Compugraphic that ran out galleys on photosensitive paper, which then got the X-acto and wax treatment.

Well, the President of the company I work for had a company that back in the 70's would rent time on main frame computers, to do computerized billing for Lawyers.

That company died very fast in the 80's as that as soon as PC's started becoming actually viable in the workplace, Lawyers bought them to do their own billing in house. Where no one else would be able to see what their billing rates were, gee go figure.

Not a job, but when I took my first computer course in college, we used a key-punch machine to put one line of code on each card. My aunt did that job for several years for a textile manufacturer. That's part of why I wanted to work in IT.

One of my first office jobs was changing the rolls of heat-sensitive paper on the fax machines.

My mother once trained to become a comptometer operator – basically an adding machine long obsolete to the extent that the spell check on this thing thinks I've spelt it wrongly.

link

My first job ever, pumping gas at a Sohio station.

Yes, punch cards! I did a vacation job once, as a 15 year old, feeding the computer by blackening spaces on punch cards.

I was a yard clerk and at another time a key punch operator. Both long gone, 20 plus years, from the railroad.

Terry

Another veteran of years of graphics paste-up here. Plus I did storyboards for advertising firms for a decade or so and made tons of money at it. Now all the cheap computer clip art packages have made it so a monkey making minimum wage can do a half-assed job and bump me out of that sort of work completely. Damn computers… 8)=

@StarfuryXL5 – I used to cut rubylith and amberlith for real estate sign designs. Quite a good part of my day was spent scaling up fonts by hand.

What used to take a couple days is now in in a fraction of a minute using a computer.

Regards, the Gorb

My father was a delievery boy for a grocery shop.

A job that disappeared for 40 years but has come back with internet shopping.

I learned how to write code using keypunch machines – what a pain

Warehouse Logistics Specialist using "Micro-fiche"…(Never could understand "why")…

Windows 3.1 Operating Specialist….(yeah…)

"Authorized" Commodore Amiga Systems Operator…(Don't ask what that entailed…)

My first job in the army. A Manpack Nuclear Specialist. Strap that sucker on my back, run like hell to the designated drop site, hope like hell I had enough time to make it a few miles away before it went off.

Crow Bait, good thing you never had to really do that job.

My maternal grandfather started as a fireman for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was the guy with the shovel feeding coal to the steam engine. He was promoted to engineer in the steam era and retired as a diesel engineer in the 70's.

My paternal great-grandfather had a general store in coal country which sold every thing from flour to nitroglycerin.

Had an uncle who served as a propeller-timer in the Navy in WWII.

Mark

"We had a Compugraphic that ran out galleys on photosensitive paper, which then got the X-acto and wax treatment."

At some point in time Agfa bought Compugraphic. The ironic part was that it was some time after Macintosh computers started replacing the typesetting machines because the Compugraphic fonts for the Mac were soon being offered as Agfafonts – yet they still had their "CG" initials in the file name, (ie; CG Davidson Americana (which is a very nice Western font).

I still have several file drawers full of Zipatone type, screens and even some dry erase graphics. I should probably see if anyone wants these. After 8 years of holding onto them, I gave the 10 years' worth of Metro clipart books to the kids' school so they could cut and paste the pictures.

Wyatt

They may not be any good any more. I had drawers of letratone sheets and transfer type, but the adhesive got too old and they couldn't be used anymore. I think I still have some rubber cement in jars in the basement -- they're probably hard blocks of rubber now.

@the Gorb – I remember cutting rubylith and red Pantone sheets for the color overlays on mechanicals (and clueless editors asking, "are they going to be different colors like that?"). Didn't have to scale up fonts, thankfully.

For my first computer programming class I had to punch cards and turn them in to be run. The next semester they had converted the computer room to virtual terminals, replacing the keypunch machines.

My grandfather worked in a shoe factory as the guy who glued on the heels.

Glad to see someone mentioned Keypunch Operator. That was where my mother started out. Eventually she moved on to become an engineering secretary after they phased out the old punchcard computers in the 1980's. Somewhere around here we have a Christmas wreath or two made form discarded punch cards.

Had a cousin who was a telegrapher for the railroad. I got a Boy Scout merit badge in it. Not much call for that anymore. My brother was a watch repairman back in the early 70's. He got into it just as electric digital watches got started. The Community College where he trained no longer teaches Micro Precision Technology or Gears,Springs, and Pins as it was called. One of my sisters was a carhop in high school back in the 70's. An uncle was an usher at a local theater in the 30's. Now the local multiplexes are run by two people, one selling tickets and one selling popcorn.

Paper Boy on a bicycle?

My mum was a telegraphist in the WRAF until she married my dad.

I used to work in a petrol station actually filling cars up with fuel (and doing the oil and stuff like that), rather than sitting behind bullet proof glass just taking the money.

I have also used lots of anachronistic technology like slide rules, computer card punches, bander machines etc but I don't recall ever getting paid for it.

Ummm….Tank commander for an M60A3? Does that count?

"Now all the cheap computer clip art packages have made it so a monkey making minimum wage can do a half-assed job and bump me out of that sort of work completely. Damn computers… "

We use them less these days, but there is still a market for a good, fast storyboard artist. Clip art never gives *quite* the effect you're after. Most double as illustrators of some kind though.

Some guys draw their stuff directly into the computer, but others still do it the old fashioned way, the only difference being they now scan it in and pdf it rather than bring in the frames. Changes are quicker too.

I used to use wax and blades myself and agree about the decline of finished art skills. And most art directors can't even draw a simple sketch for themselves now. Now they look for 'reference' or stock shots to scan straight in. Call me old-fashioned but an art director should know how to draw, and know something about type other than choosing it from a drop down menu.

As a writer, I often now find i can draw better than the art director I work with. And I do not draw well.

I also remember when sound and 'video' editors used magnetic tape, razor blades, steam benches and adhesive strips to put together an edit.

I do not miss that stuff though. Now it is easy to ask "Can we take four frames off there, just to see if it works better?" That would not go down well on a razor blade edit.

I too was a paperboy.

Proofreader.
-Kle.

My mother was a telephone switchboard operator, pull out the plug, plug it into another hole to make the connection.

I too learned to make computer punch cards, and I remember my first Army ROTC check had those rectangular holes so they could be sorted by computer.

When I first started as a police officer we used revolvers, with belt loops rather than speed loaders, and did not carry a hand held radio.

Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek
sgtsays.blogspot.com
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

[Proofreader.
-Kle.]

LOL. True. I miss poofreaders.

Yes, unfortunately, there don't seem to be any around anymore.

(Proofreaders, either. )

Latin teachers have pretty much disappeared. So have Icemen. Milk man is pretty much dead. Our milk company used horses that knew the routes. The milkman would be in the back of the wagon filling the order and the horse would just walk on to the next house. I remember one of them getting spooked by something and heading for the barn while the guy was going up to the house across the street from us. He had to walk all the way back to the barn, which was a considerable distance.
We also no longer get visits from the Jewel Tea man.

Slide rules, to wander off on a slight tangent, are still alive and well in aviation – we call them E6Bs, they're a specialized circular slide rule.

Not old enough myself to have any obselete jobs in my resume; my father did lots of punchcard computer work for the statistics in his PhD thesis, though…

I was a so called 'Sandwich Artist' for Subway. I made sandwiches. Lame job. bad experience with the coworkers.

I worked at a Euro Auto Parts warehouse last summer in 100 plus degree weather, no a/c and co workers I really didnt get along with. got into arguements with them. almost fought one. overall a really bad deal.

Sorting empty soda pop bottles in the grocery store. That job is D-E-D dead.

Taking the sprocket holes off printout.

@Murphy,

Thermal or Passive??

Charles