In another thread, a few of us were discussing some type of machines and work that was used years ago and how much technology has taken over since then.
Since there are quite a few of us "old timers" on this forum ;) I thought it would be interesting to hear about jobs we use to do (whether they be as a housewife, paying job, hobby, etc.) and how we did them, and how much that same job has changed today.
As an example, I use to be a typesetter for a newspaper in the 1970's. The way we set type and processed the news stories is soooo much different today than back when I was doing it. Here's what I wrote in another thread:
"Along this line - my very first paying job was a typesetter for a newspaper back in 1974. Back then, you typed on a compugraphic machine where it punched dots in a paper that you fed into another machine that would produce the hard copy. I couldn't "see" what I was typing, it was all by feel. There was no spellchecking - it wasn't available. Here's a link to this kind of printing - ahhhh, brings back memories . . . http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/woverbeck/dtr5.htm
Once the copy went to the proofreaders, they could send the copy back to you to make corrections. On occasion, they would have to re-run the whole story in a different size font as it wouldn't fit on the page in paste-up. That would involve flipping some settings on the Compugraphic machine that you ran your tape through for the hard copy.
A very interesting job and one that made me a very fast typist. Boy, I can just imagine how fast I could type now in that job with all the modern technology that has evolved since 1974!! Back then, they paid $2.15 an hour!! :o :o
Can you imagine what the people who did that kind of job with all the sorts would think of the way it's done now?? It would blow their mind!!"
So, fellow Old Timers, what type of machines and jobs did you use to do that has been streamlined and advanced in today's technology?
Bucky
(You youngin's don't be laughing at us Old Timers . . . . some day YOU too will be marveling how much things have changed in your life time!! ;) )
Oh, lord, I hated footnoted papers in high school! No computers, and you had to retype the page if you found a new reference that you forgot. This was even before Liquid Paper, so I had to retype many a page for errors as well. I still have the typewriter eraser!
Sharon
Here comes a real oldie!!!I was raised in the restaurant business and started working or 25C an hour when I was about 12 years old. I was dishwasher and washed a heck of a lot of pots and pans that were piled high in the huge stainless steel sink. Also, peeled a heck of a lot of potatoes and ran the dishwasher, scrubbed the floors, etc.
When I was 14 I became a morning full time waitress from 6:30am-3pm and sometimes til closing at 7pm. I could work any hours cause I was the owners daughter. I got 25 cents an hour plus tips and later had raise to 50 cents all through high school.
The thing that was so different is that there were no fast food restaurants around then. There was an A & W Root Beer stand, but that is about it. My dad made all the roasts, gravy, mashed potatoes, hash browns, potato salad, french fries, cakes cookies, soups, pies, etc from scratch and I don't remember there being anything prepackaged except for the breaded frozen shrimp that he would deep fry.
He made about 14 different kinds of pie from scratch and made his own crust. He also made his own home made donuts and they were so darn good. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. I worked hard and didn't get to play much growing up and I can't say that it hurt me any. Now days it is almost impossible to find a cafe that cooks "home made". I sure miss all those ma and pas restaurants. You go to all the Perkins, Bakers, etc and the food all tastes the same now. Irish
A topic dear to my heart!
Years ago I wrote an essay for a medical/nursing journal about the rapid changes in our careers in the relatively short time I had been practicing, and it was very well received. Although much of it would only ring bells with doctors and nurses, there were many things that others would be aware of, like the beds that went from not much more than flat wide gurneys with elevating heads to computerized, compartmentalized, conveyance systems with the capability to weigh, monitor, transport and even turn the patient.
I trained with glass syringes and metal needles we had to sharpen ourselves, at the end of every shift and then sterilize (often running over into our own time), and thouroughly enjoyed the introduction of prepackaged, disposable plastic syringes with single use needles. I even got to see the introduction of pressure injectors...no needles at all!
Basic ventilators for which nurses were responsible for the most part, because respiratory therapists were rare and valued creatures, usually only one on shift in the hospital at a time! Now entire departments of RTs with highly specialized skills are in charge of the ventilators which, like the beds, have become complex miracles of engineering.
There were also rapid advances that took specialized monitoring from the operating theater to the bedside...when I was a student procedures like the sampling of arterial blood (as opposed to the venous blood usually taken for testing) was done in the OR, and the insertion of long catheters through a vein into the large vessels near the heart was done only under anaesthetic with fluoroscopy. By the time I retired it was a commonplace bedside occurrence in ICU, and a much more valuable monitoring tool.
CAT scans, MRIs, PET scans, computer assisted surgery...all developed during the time I worked, and all required a huge learning curve!
Among the biggest changes were the social ones...away with the starchy white cutting edge (and I don't mean modern, I mean the starched edges of those dresses were really sharp!) uniforms and on to much more practical scrubs, colour optional. Although I still value my nursing cap, and the effort it took to earn it, I do not miss the fact that it was constantly in the way of cables and multiple IV lines, nor do I miss the fact of clumps of hair being pulled out when it got dislodged! Huge changes in the "nurse as handmaiden" school of thought, and nurses began to be accepted more as colleagues and team members.
My colleagues often remark that we were lucky to work through what is looking more and more like the "golden age" of nursing; so many changes and advancements but still with the underlying basis of nursing as a calling or vocation. I'm sorry to say that, with changing education methods, nursing now seems to be just another job.
My first full time job was repairing projectors, amplifiers, and tape recorders for 75 cents per hour. I rode my bike to and from work. My shift was from noon to 8pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 5pm on Saturday. There was not overtime pay on the job. I could work extra hours and I often did to bring home more money so I could borrow mom's car to go on a date with my girlfriend. I could not afford the traditional dates but a group of us would get together and pile into mom's Rambler station (with rape seats as they were called) and head to the local drive-in for a double or more feature.
My girlfriend and I were living at home and saving our money to get married. She had to pay for our wedding herself so we had a double wedding with her twin sister. With the help of her dad, I made her a big hope chest. My savings when for dishes, silverware, some small appliances and collapsible furniture for our first hoped for apartment.
It seemed to take forever to raise the $300.00 for her wedding dress. I picked out her dress and the dresses for her bridesmaids. The girls did not like the dresses until they tried them on. They were able to wear the dresses to other events after the wedding.
Hi :)
My first job ever was as a chauffer and general dogsbody for an ancient member of the British Aristocracy. I had to drive, clean, cook, garden and read stories to her and prolly some other stuff beside. I was paid a pittance, which I refused to pay tax on because she refused to pay the bit that employers were meant to pay. I was hauled down to the tax office aqnd when they heard what I'd been expected to do and how many hours a day I'd been working they didn't ask me for any money.
My first proper job (not holiday) was as a potter.
I've also worked as a kitchen assistant in a hotel, a puppeteer and a facepainter before the job I've just been made redundant from.
Take care - Scottie :)
I have been lucky enough to have many relatives that have lived to a ripe old age and have enjoyed talking to them about their lives.
My great grandmother lived to see things from electricity and telephones to your home, washing machines, radio, TV, car & aeroplanes. The one thing that impressed her the most was when man walked on the moon.
Just before she died at 96, my grandmother told me about her family's camping trips when she was young. Amongst other things, they took their chickens with them, so they could have fresh eggs. If they stopped laying.... they had chicken for dinner.
My kids, now 25,22 & 20 can't imagine life without mobile phones, computers, internet, dishwashers, microwave ovens, air-conditioning.
When I was in college I worked as a switchboard operator in a small county hospital in New Jersey. There were two operators on duty until the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift when there was only one. This was a for-real switchboard with plugs and cords and a wall of little holes, one for each room.
It was all very Lily Tomlin.
Just the other day I was talking to my daughter-in-law about how much I miss being able to pick up the extension at the house when my husband calls his mom so we can all chat together.
My 11-year-old grandson was listening to us could NOT picture a phone attached to the wall, let alone one that had extensions. We tried to explain party lines to him, too, to no avail.
A66eyroad, I too had a job once as a "for real switchboard operator with plugs and cords". It was a temporary job (Kelly Girls). Actually, it was kinda fun!
I also grew up in the "party line" era. I remember being over at my girlfriends house several doors down from my house and we'd very quietly pick up the receiver of the phone and listen in on the conversations . . . . until, we'd hear, "girls, get off the phone!" as we would be sitting there giggling, etc. :D
I always hated when you needed to make a call and you'd pick up the phone and there would be Miss Miller there gabbing and gabbing away and you couldn't make your call. On occasion, I remember people would call the operator and have them break into the line saying there was an emergency so they would clear the lines.
Growing up, we had a milk case on the front porch and the "milk man" would deliver glass bottles of milk to your home, complete with icing the milk in this insulated milk case. Then, you would return the used bottles back to the milk case and he would pick them up on next delivery.
You know, a person could make a little business out of that today - delivering milk and bread to homes. If you lived in or near a sub-division you could make up little fliers and have deliveries twice a week. I know for myself, IF I had someone that would bring that to my home, and I had to pay a little extra for it over making a trip to the store, it would be worth it.
Thank goodness for the invention of a garage door opener - I always hated having to get out and open or close the garage door in the pouring rain, snow, heat, etc.
Bucky
Bucky, I remember the milk man also. The bottles were glass and they had heavy paper lids that you pulled off. I think there were other types of lids also. I remember having lids that had some type of writing on them cause you would save them and get a prize or something.
My son and his wife have a milk man that delivers. They leave the house open and he puts the milk in the refrig. I don't think I could be that trusting. They have been doing this for 20 years I think. Irish
Irish - wow, I can't believe your son leaves his house open for a milk delivery. I wouldn't do that.
From what I remember - our milk bottles had cardboard with a tab in the neck opening of the bottle that you pulled to open. I wonder if we replaced this each time after using the milk to put it back in the refrigerator? I don't know.
Also from my childhood, I remember my mom and grandmother collecting S & H stamps and filling booklets and redeeming them for different products. Every time they shopped, based on the total of their sales, they would get these stamps to keep, lick and stick in a booklet, and then redeem them. I think I've seen some old stamps laying around my parents house in recent years when I've been home visiting.
I just googled S & H stamps and find that they are still being redeemed, but now they are called green points. I doubt you would get the great deals you did back in the 60's, and it probably requires a lot more "points" to redeem them, but I thought that was interesting.
I also remember my late MIL's stories of the items they would get in their laundry detergent boxes in days gone by. Many times it would be a kitchen towel or a drinking glass. It wasn't something you had to send away for, it was included in the box - much like the little toys in cereal boxes of today.
Both my MIL and SIL would collect box top points and redeem them for items - such as Oneida silverware.
My MIL also told of all the feed sack dresses and towels that were made in her day from the sacks that feed came in.
Bucky
@A66eyroad I have two of those switchboards in my garage. More are stored for the MN Telephone Pioneer Museum. We have a coin phone from 1910. We also have a lot of equipment that represents the history of the industry. I even have a couple of bell acid phones. The company has forced our museum into storage.
The Museum in West Fargo at Bonanza Ville is a working museum and very interesting to go through. Bonanza Ville is a small community that is attached to the fairgrounds. Old houses that are furnished and provided with tour guides. An old steam engine, Log cabins, Vehicles, hotel, and many other exhibits. It is a treat to tour. The memories that it brings back.
I remember writing computer programs in FORTRAN on punch cards. It seemed so normal then, but I guess punch cards were used for a relatively short time. I remember sitting in the computer center at Stanford in the early 80s late at night (program code never worked until the wee hours) writing lines that were then punched into cards. The vending machines sold bunches of cards with rubber bands around them, no candy. The room was filled with huge sorting machines that looked ancient even then (Whatever happened to them?)
When we were done with a large program, we'd carry our punched cards in a thick cardboard tray over to the main computer area and set them into the computer entry tray for reading. If anyone tripped and dropped their box of cards, there was another machine to sort them back into proper order.
If you wrote the code wrong and inadvertently set up an infinite loop, the green-striped connected sheets of paper would shoot out of the printer into huge stacks until someone could run over and turn it off. One of my friends shamefacedly admitted he would build a wall dispenser for scrap paper from his mistake.
I remember when we got our first lab personal computer with XY printer and cassette tape backup. Yowza. We had to program the printer when we wanted to graph something - pen up, send pen to these coordinates, pen down, go to these coordinates or follow this equation, pen up, etc. It knew letters, but we had to program the axes and tick marks.
I met someone who had just graduated with a PhD in linguistics. Being in the hard sciences, I wondered what kind of a job she'd be able to get. It turned out she was hired by one of the big silicon valley companies to help invent the terminology for the new computer industry. Bits, bites, loops - all invented with the help of linguists.
Pretty exciting time. Now it's all I can do to sync my phone with my computer. My husband still has some DOS programs running on his iMac (with difficulty).
I am only 44 but that's old enough to remember vinyl records, phones that were only in your house or business and were attached to the wall with cords (and even had dials!), and I had to do all my high school papers on a Selectric typewriter with carbon paper and White-out - I feel like a real fossil describing that stuff to my 14-year-old daughter! ::)
In my job, though, we mostly use 19th-Century technology - I teach riding and train horses for a living, and not much has changed there in a couple of centuries. It's part of why I love it!!!! (though I will admit to riding around the property until I get to the corner of the back pasture that has WiFi so I can check Facebook on my iPhone every now and then.... ;) )
@Sooki, I remember repairing vacuum tube computers when I was in the eighth grade. My first programming language was FOCII. My first assembly language was BAL. I wrote in FORTRAN, SNOBOL, COBOL, Pascal, Basic, Ratfor, and C. I taught GPSS to statistics classes. It was requested that leave the college when I was programming in COMPASS because I brought down DARPA NET and SAC. I got to meet Admiral Grace Hopper and discuss the merits of PL1. She gave each of us a wire that was 11.7 inches long (one Nano Second). I remember programs on paper tape and loading programs with switches.
PDP8, IBM360, Univac1130, 1700. A friend reprogrammed the 1700 in COBOL to move the terminal to a CRT to save paper. Then he reprogrammed the CRT so he could play video games.
4004, 8008, 8080, Z80, 6800, 6502 and my favorite microprocessor the 1802 which was configured as an 8 bit IBM360
I hated punch cards with a passion. I wrote thousands of pages of code before the TRS80 Model 1 came to the market. I have had a distaste for Apple since it ate my first project. The Commodore 64 was interesting but the Amiga was much more interesting. CP/M, and DOS were interesting to optimize with MASM programs. Pcode was essential to interpreters. Forth allowed for self modifying code as a threaded interpreter. I thought it worked better than LISP for programming Artificial Intelligence.
Joe, God Bless you and your wonderful mind. I know where the on/off switch is on my computer and that is about it. I hate to tell you but I learned on a Mac at work and I really hate my PC. I have never adjusted to it. You are one smart dude!!!
Bucky, Yes, I do remember the S&H stamps and Gold Bond stamps I think they were called. Such a huge, important thing in our lives back then. I hated having to lick those stamps and put them in the books.
Also, I remember a little bit about the dishes in the cereal boxes and I think some detergents. Also, the big thing I remember is the really nice drinking glasses that we could get when we bought gas. I have a few of the dishes from the cereal--inherited them from my MIL.
I also remember the material that was used to make feed sacks, flour sacks, etc. My mom used to use them to make dish towels. I was really young at that time. My dad gave me a transister portable radio (AM of course) when I was in high school and it was the cats pjs at that time.
When I think back to being a kid in the 40's and early 50's I often wonder what the heck we ate or snacked on. We had potato chips in the big cans but I don't remember much else. Ice cream came in quarts and pints. Guess we ate bread and jelly or graham crackers/soda crackers. Anybody else remember snacks. No HoHo's, etc.Imagine we ate home made cookies without all the artificial ingredients. Irish
I just posted and Irish's post mad4e it and mine didn't. I'll write it tomorrow.
@Irish, I leave my computer on so I do not have to find the on/off switch. My wife has a tendency to turn off the wifi and I just never seem to remember how to turn it back on. It is a lighted antenna on my key board, red is off, blue is on. I check all cables and wires before the touch sensitive light.
Mom found a recipe for Icebox cookies on an oatmeal box. You mix them up and form them into logs. Then you place them into the Freezer over night. You cut the frozen dough and bake. They are made with ground walnuts, coconut, and oatmeal.
My uncle worked for general mills so I got to try a lot of new cereals before they came out. The game and stories we made up when I played with my cousins often became toys and cartoons. I did not think about it at the time, when I got older I realized that my uncle and his co-workers used their kids as test subjects. My cousins always had the latest new toys.
Who remembers sitting in front of their TV with a TV dinner watching the Flintstones? Dad was selling appliances and TV's. We got the first color TV in our neighborhood. I brought a small black and white TV to the lake and Dx'd TV stations from Minneapolis, South Dakota, Winnipeg, and Chicago when the skip signal was good. We had and old tube radio (am) that was about the size of a small fireplace and had a nice warmth to it as we searched for radio stations that we wanted to hear. You tuned the radio and then tuned the antenna to get a good sound that did not fade.
Who remembers having to run to the out house? Did you have an old Sears catalog or toilet paper? Do you remember reading with hurricane lamps? How about telling stories by fire light to stay up later.
When I stayed with my cousins - Jim, Jay, Jon, and Jed - we took turns starting the wood stove, going to the pump that had to be primed, and chopping wood before coming in to wash up for breakfast. We listened to 78 records on the big hand crank Victrola. We slept in the screened porch of an old Victorian style farm house.
@Joe - I can just see you as one of those really bright kids who brought down DARPA (and SAC??). They must have been pretty interested in you and your talents. It was people like you who brought us all these advances.
Two enjoyable books come to mind - Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb - a mystery that takes place at a sci-fi convention and people are all using bulletin boards to communicate (sequel - Zombies of the Gene Pool also good). Also Cory Doctorow's Little Brother in which high school gamers bring down DHS (which has taken over San Francisco) using old XBox technology. Fun reads.
I can remember when I was around4 years old (1947 or so) sitting on the floor in the living room with my ear close to the big radio that sat on the floor. Mom would feed me early and then at 12 Noon I would sit and listen to the David Stone Show. Played old country western music, weather, joking around etc.
My dad sold TV's in his store and he brought home a black and white Traveler TV that we watched mostly in the evening. There wasn't much on but Saturday nite wrestling I remember. I would ride around with dad when he would fix TV's---they were the old tube jobs. Times have changed.
Yes, Joe, I remember watching TV and eating TV dinners. I don't know what year they came out but it would have been in the early to mid 50's. Saturday nites dad had the store open. The town where we lived was full of people shopping and sitting around and visiting. THe popcorn wagon was on the side of the street and the band would play in the bandstand in the park. Sometimes I would get to go to the movies and it was 25 cents.
I hate to say it, but I think the kids had more fun back then. We ran all over town. All the mom's were pretty much home and if you were naughty somebody elses mom would scold you and send you home. Nobody got sued over it---just the way it was back then and it worked well.
We climbed trees, made forts, found tall grass and made hideouts. Just had a darn good time playing from morning til night. Now the kids are all glued to some electronic device and hardly see the light of day. I know the world is not as safe as it used to be, but I think life for the kids is way too stressful and not very fullfilling. Just my humble opinion. IRish
I'll try again and hope I don't fade out. When I was aged pre-jr/sr high, we lived in the upper peninsula of Michigan on a farm. It would get 25 or 30 below zero just as snow fell to dozens of inches. I went to a one-room country school until we moved to southern Michigan. Our one room school had no telephone, no running water (not even a pump), chemical toilets - one in the girl's cloak room and one in the boy's cloak room. The teacher fed a wood burning stove during the day to keep us warm. She would have to come into a frosty school early every morning. I am thinking we did have electric, but I am not sure. We used to listen to the radio for "music class" once a week from a local radio station. We could have had a radio run with batteries. We had no soda, no water, no snacks, only what was packed from home and we carried for lunch. If someone forgot their lunch, the teacher would give some of her food and ask others to donate to the forgotten one.
My kindergarden year, my brother was 12 and in 7th grade and that was the last grade and then you went to to town to jr/sr high school. It was a long ride back and forth on the bus. We lived one mile from the school and walked this in every kind of weather. It's a wonder I didn't get stuck in the snow and lost forever. My brother would take off across the field so take a short cut and I had to follow and was way, way behind. I remember bawling all the way to school and sniveling away. I was likely covered with tears, spit, boogers all frozen on my little face. My brother was never in a mood to help me. I only had to deal with him one year though and he was gone to big school.
Water was brought to the school is a 5 or 10 gallon milk jug every morning by the bus driver. When it was summer, we drank more water and sometimes we would run out of water by noon. If that happened, I got to walk to my friend's house closest to the school, call my folks and ask my Dad to bring some water to the school on his way to work on second shift. I felt like a big shot when I got to do that.
Also as a perk, my older sister used to have the job of cleaning/scrubbing the school floor once a month for $5.00. She often had to take my younger sister with her "to watch us" while she was doing the big job. I used to sit in every desk, look in the teacher's desk and generally be a pest. We did not have tv until just before we moved to lower Mich. A tv station was going into Soo Canada and we would be able to get it! Dad bought a tv way before we could see anything. Imagine, no tv. It wasn't a matter of rich or poor. We simply did not live within a reception area. OK, here I go again. Hope it posts this time
Lucy
I worked as an emergency room receptionist at a hospital in the mid 70s, when I was 20. One of my jobs was typing up the daily surgical schedule. This was on a manual type writer, typing through with carbon paper, hammering as hard as I could on the keys to get through 7 copies each 3 different times, for a total of 21 copies. when they proudly supplied me with an electric type writer, I was disappointed because then I could only legibly type through 5 carbon copies, causing to make a whole other set, 4 in all.
I distributed these copies through out the hospital by way of the tube system, in order get this task out before the floors began calling inquiring for their schedules - I needed a good supply of tubes for their deliveries. I would begin collecting tubes at my feet as I received them in my little ER station; all morning hoarding tubes as I typed and carried on other very immediate duties of the ER. Until I heard maintenance stomping down the haul......"Kim", and there I sit with all the tubes of the whole hospital. Maintenance would get word that the tube system was broken down. They knew where to come and some would even help me load the schedules and send them in my wild rush.
The long time maintenance men there at the hospital would tease me years later, saying they had to lay off a maintenance man when I left there.
One time with my sister, (who also worked there in the pharmacy) - We had been out to lunch, me driving, us talking and gabbing as sisters often do. Well when we got out of the car and we are standing on the side walk getting ready to go back into work, my sister says, "are you going to turn your car off?" I look at her and smile stupidly, "I can't it's locked !" So we stand there and laugh. She goes into her department which is directly across from maintenance and ask them if they can bust into my car, as I locked my keys in it. "Which one is it?", they ask. "The one running", she told them as she and they laughed together.
When they came to the ER acting like they could not open it they said, "it will run out of gas", I said, "it has a full tank." They laughed and handed me my keys.
I would like to just say how much I love great memories with my sister, we are now in our late 50s and we still laugh and gab it up together. We are 16 months apart she hugs me often and calls me her fun sister.
Thanks Bucky, you make this place special. It really is a different world from our early jobs.
I love reading these stories.