BS: Recently redundant professions

Subject: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Arnie
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:29 AM

Watching my wife vacuum the living-room at the weekend, using a Dyson, it occured to me that makers of vacuum cleaner bags are either already redundant or soon will be. I should add here that I may well have wielded the Dyson myself but am convalescing after an op. I then recalled that the first job my mom had after leaving school in the '30's was as a colourist in a photo studio. Her job was to paint in the colours on black & white photos! The photographer would write what the colours should be, and my mom would try to match the colour in paint. With the advent of colour photos, she of course lost her job. She then became a bus conductor or 'clippie' - although strictly speaking a tram conductor, as these were still in use in Manchester during the '40's and a bit later. This is another recently defunct profession - conductors were certainly still around when I used buses in the '60's and early '70's (move down the bus!) so not sure when they were phased out but they're not there now. After that, my mom worked in a woollen mill as a loom operator, and now they're all gone! Maybe it's something to do with my mom, but there must be a load of jobs that have, or soon will be, consigned to history and memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:43 AM

Comptometer operators.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:55 AM

Coronation programme sellers!

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: s&r
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 08:08 AM

We had a picture taken of our first child by a doorstep photographer, and ordered a coloured picture (tinted as above). I was perturbed about the egg stain on the baby's garment: the photographer assured us that the stain could be removed in the processing/tinting. He marked the order 'take care of egg stain on garment'. When we received the picture the colouris had taken care of the egg stain by painting it an unbelievably bright yellow!

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 08:09 AM

around 25 years ago an older friend decided to go back to work after 24 years of not working outside her home.

She announced she had been a comptometer operator & I had to tell her that they were long obsolete! I remembered some old comptometers in our office when I started in 1973, but by then we had modern technology.

We had punch card machines & operators! I still have some small strong cardboard boxes used to send the cards to Head Office where The Computer lived.

I can't remember exactly when the Director's secretary got a Word Processor to replace her electric typewriter, but I do remember taking a page with a single typo back & tossing it on her desk for replacement rather than correcting the errant character!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: beeliner
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 10:44 AM

Public stenographers used to be ubiquitous - virtually one on every block. The qualifications - you had to able to read and write which, not all that long ago, within the memory of some still living, many people could not.

A more recent example - manufacturers of phonograph needles.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 11:04 AM

Vinyl records are making a minor comeback. There aren't as many turntables as there used to be but I would imagine someone somewhere is making needles.

But I don't think there are any more telephone operators. The switching all seems to be electronic now. I wonder what a 20 year old would think listening to that old Jim Croce song.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 11:10 AM

Well I think vacuum cleaner bag manufacturers still make a good living. I recently gave our Dyson away because it was useless - passed it on to our son - and looked at the UK "Which" report for the best buys. Almost all the top 30 best buys - in their opinion and rated on suction power, air filtration, noise, weight, accessibility, etc. - were Miele cleaners. And most of those were cylinder machines with bags.

I bought one of the top recommended Miele models - and it beats the Dyson into a cocked hat - bag and all.

Funnily enough, there's also a good market in phonograph needles - both steel and fibre - because of the constant interest in old-fashioned phonographs, particularly those with horns.

People have also predicted the death of vinyl - still going strong...

But, yes, the world of the "secretary" - with shorthand/stenography and typewriters has changed dramatically. I know a couple of authors and writers who still prefer a typewriter to a word-processor - says it makes then think more before they write.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 11:15 AM

Since book, newspaper and magazine publishers have spell- and grammar-checkers in their software, they appear to be getting along without human proofreaders. You see a lot more misspelled words that get through because they happen to be the proper spelling of another word, stuff like that.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 11:21 AM

Proof readers? They also need Copy Editors!

I much prefer a vacuum bag. Why empty a tank into a bag (and possibly spilling some of the dirt you just cleaned up) when the dirt can already be bagged for you? And I don't really find it exciting to watch dirt being sucked up into a chamber -- it's like watching clothes dry.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 12:19 PM

If photo colorists are completely obsolete now, it didn't happen quite soon enough. A couple of years back out church put out a directory, with photos by appointment. My wife had just run short of decent makeup (which she really seldom wears at all, so she invested at fair amount, with the help of a consultant who happened to be working the makeup department that day. We ordered one large print for ourselves, which was to automatically include retouching. The photo came back looking as if Tammy Faye Baker had done her makeup, and hadn't had her contacts in when she did. (This is an unpaid "endorsement" for Olin Mills studios).

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: theleveller
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 12:27 PM

In the UK, fortunately, we no longer need a hangman.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 12:56 PM

In my younger days, I always had suits made to measure. To do that these days would cost a fortune. You could walk into any clothes shop on the high street and ask for a made to measure suit and taht was the norm.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 01:26 PM

"In the UK, fortunately, we no longer need a hangman."

Not in Texas either. Its a team of technicians with needles.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: beeliner
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 01:45 PM

I would imagine someone somewhere is making needles.

No doubt, and of course modern needles last practically forever.

I was thinking of the old osmium needles (anyone else here old enough to remember them?).

They came in little envelopes of a dozen for about a dime (yes, less than a penny per needle), and sounded great for about ten or twelve plays, after which you had to change needles. Most phonographs of that era had a little used needle cup recessed into the turntable base. This was supposed to prevent the expired needles from ending up elsewhere, such as someone's rear end, and that produced an old joke:

"When my mother was pregnant with me, she sat down on a phonograph needle, but it didn't affect me, it didn't affect me, it didn't affect me, it didn't affect me...."

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 02:04 PM

I watched my garbage company truck pull up to my trash can, extend a vise, grab the can, and tip it into the bin. So long, trash men!

Gas station attendants

typesetters

signpainters

newspaper reporters ( I give them another five years)

Grocery Checkout Clerks

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 02:25 PM

"My trade I was a cooper
Lost out to redundancy
Like my house that fell to progress
My trades a memory"

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 02:31 PM

We once had a bagless vacuum cleaner. It was horrible. I suffer from a mild allergy to household dust and it claimed to have clever "hepa" filters to eliminate dust. All very clever until the container was full.
You then had to take it outside, open the container and try to empty it into the bin.
At this point all the dust and muck in the container flew into the air and coated me from head to foot, triggering violent sneezing and the need to take a shower and completely change my clothes.
I was thankful to get back to bags.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: MikeL2
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:10 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: The Villan - PM
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:43 AM

< "Comptometer operators." >

hi les

Yes I do remember them !! My ex wife was one.

She worked for the company that I did. That's how we met.

She was the manager of all of the comptometer "girls" and their main task was to produced the wages for the 3000 strong work force.

I was monthly paid so she did not work mine out....lol

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: MikeL2
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:13 PM

hi sandra

Yes we got round to working with punched cards - Hollerith.

The punchings sometimes made good "confetti" when employees got married. They itched somewhat due to the sharp corners.

regards

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: MikeL2
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:21 PM

Hi les

Yes I remember that.

Morecombe and Wise did a sketch where Ernie turned up in a badly fitting suit. Ernie proudly announced "This is a made to measure suit".

Eric replied. " Really? Where were you when it was measured." lol

I bought a suit like that at Burtons once.

Where the sleeve met the shoulder it was all wrinkled. They tried to fix it but it was never right. I kept on complaining and eventually the Managing Director came to my home and he measured me and I got to choose from a more expensive cloth. Best fitting suit I ever had.

cheers

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Bert
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:35 PM

The Rainbow bag less vacuum cleaner has been around for years. It uses a container full of water to filter the dust. Works really well.

Then there was punched tape that made even finer confetti. We put some in a guy's umbrella one time. He was not amused.

Not much need for boilermakers out there now. But there are still a few around.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 03:45 PM

Helpdesk operators. Not lost, but gone abroad.
Blue-collar workers. Ditto.
Loco Fireman.
As L.EJ says, and I'd include all printers.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:19 PM

folksingers

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:23 PM

I spent twenty years in the typography industry. Virtually no one understood what we were doing back when we were still doing it ~ some folks (including even my mother, whose father operated a print shop in the bsement of their home and should have known better) believed we were still carving letterforms into blocks of wood ~ and now that the entire industry is dead, people don't understand what it was that we used to do.

Typical reaction: "Oh, you were put out of business by computers, right?" Well, not exactly. We were using computers to produce our product before any other non-number-crunching industry. The downfall of our business came when computerized text-processing and page-layout became so easy that our former customers could do it themselves.

Back when our monitors displayed glowing green characters, all the same size and on a black background, figuring out how the words would look and fit on a page was specialized knowledge. With the advent of "what-you-see-is-what-you-get," no one needed our expertise any longer.

***************

I have no idea what a "Comptometer" is. Is/was this a British phenomenon? In other words, is my unfamilarity with this word due to my being American, or was it simply before my time? (I'm "only" 62 years old, which is apparently average-to-young among Mudcatters ;^)

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:23 PM

Linotype operators and repair techs! Now there was a complex mechanical device....even more complicated than the last generation of mechanical cash registers in grocery stores.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 05:56 PM

Door to door salespersons (I kindly remember fish mongers, the Watkins man and Fuller brush salesmen)

Encyclopedia salespersons

Scissors sharpeners

On street shoe shiners

Grocery store meat wrappers, replaced by rappers:)

Plasterers

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 06:10 PM

I have not read all of the above but I wonder if we could please distinguish professions from lesser occupations.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Rowan
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 06:14 PM

PoppaGator, comptometers were mechanical adding machines that printed out their inputs and outputs onto cards; I know some were more advanced but that was what they basically were. During Uni I briefly worked for an insurance company that had entire floors of women sitting at rows of them; Burroughs was apparently the Rolls Royce of such machines.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 06:35 PM

Publishing
Entertainment

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 07:44 PM

Perhaps not recent enough for "Recently redundant professions," but the first thing I thought of was "Senate Ethics Committee."

John

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 09:22 PM

Not yet redundant- phonograph cartridge manufacturers.
I am about to buy a new one. Looking at Denon. One of their lower-priced ones is c. $329.00 (DL-301 MKII).

Any suggestions in that or lower price range?

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:10 AM

Editors - spellcheck is not the same.

Some years back the Federal Agency where I worked decided that with desktop publishing, we didn't need a Publishing Dept, so every Section produced their own pubications. My friend who was moved from Publishing into my section, & other thoughtful folks, didn't agree.

First big problem was when a retired senior politician/statesman called about some mistakes he'd noticed in our most important publication. He's a good bloke, so was just telling us what he'd noticed, & not creating a fuss or dragging the agency into the media mud.

The team updating the publication hadn't removed all references to the previous edition, some page headings gave the previous year's date!

Other publications also had mistakes at times.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Gurney
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:12 AM

Poppagator, my wife operated a comptometer when I first met her. I was impressed; holding a conversation-reading figures from a list-punching mechanical keys and pulling arms, like a Vegas slot-machine addict. An example of multitasking I couldn't hope to match.

Sandra, as you say. Printers themselves were usually better than most with the language, and then the editor caught (it was hoped) anything they missed. Spellcheck is hopeless at homonyms, junior reporters are good at producing them.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Arnie
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 05:49 AM

Here's another one - car mechanics. Some may beg to differ, but are the overalled brigade in the local garage still mechanics? My friend retired 10 yrs ago as a car mechanic of 40yrs experience, and says that today's bunch don't know how to do repairs - they simply replace parts. Even with my limited car knowledge, I was always able to replace the brushes in a starter motor on my Cortina, Toledo or whatever I was driving 20yrs ago. Today's car parts are sealed and disposable - quicker and cleaner than effecting a repair but not doing much for the technical knowledge of the 'mechanic'. Maybe they should be renamed 'car part replacers' or some such.

I'm interested to see that there is still a fan base for vacuum cleaners that use paper bags. Seems like my prediction of their demise was a bit premature...

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:09 AM

Catholic priests.

(At least the job description seems to be moving along a bit...)

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:40 AM

you mean roman catholic priests?there are othodox catholics as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: MikeL2
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 10:55 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: PoppaGator - PM
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:23 PM

Hi poppagator

I know what you mean.

I actually worked for a typesetting company and I knew all about how they worked. I struggled hard to recognise fonts of matrices and marvelled how the setters laid out the pages.

I am afraid that I was part of their downfall. Automatic justification was being sought to try to automate some of the setters' workload. I got involved with computers at this stage and worked on some of the automatic typesetters that replaced the old Linotype machines in most of the newspapers.

" Bless them Lord they know not what they do".

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 11:05 AM

Typewriter mechanics. I can't find someone to fettle my old Imperial or supply a new ribbon for love nor money.
The Linotype machine was a thing of beauty - perhaps the most complex mechanical thing I ever saw that I could actually understand. And the lovely tinkling noise it made haunts me still.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: IanC
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 11:17 AM

The landlord of a very small pub in the next village when I was a youngster had retired from his job due to the mechanisation of farming following on World War 2.

He had been a contract haystack thatcher.

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Gurney
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 03:22 PM

The bread man.
The milkman.
The pop man.
These were contract home deliverers. Pop = soda.
Cobblers.

Wait for it!

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:04 PM

My Beautiful Wife and I have a fifty-or-so year old house, whose walls and ceilings are made of REAL PLASTER, not wallboard.

Just TRY to find a competent (and maybe even incompetent) plaster man today, to make repairs!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Rasener
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:09 PM

WE still have deliveries from

The Milkman
The Tea man
The Tesco man

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 05:02 PM

Slide rule salesmen and manufacturers. ;-)

Tinkers.

Fletchers.

Millers.

Cartwrights.

Ragmen.

Shoe repair shops have almost vanished.

Also...alligator wrestling seems to be in decline lately. It's not completely gone, mind you. Just in decline.

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 05:39 PM

Just TRY to find a competent (and maybe even incompetent) plaster man today, to make repairs!
Shame you're on the wrong side of the pond - that's just what I do. Haired lime plaster on riven oak or chestnut lath a speciality of the house. And my trade isn't dying out!

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 07:44 PM

An adult film stunt man....oh, oh, thought you meant "recent repugnant professions".... my mistake

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 08:34 PM

Oh...Republican Presidential candidates...

Subject: RE: BS: Recently redundant professions
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 08:47 PM

I can trump you all!

Intellectuals - those that study the world and then actually THINK....