Do you have any job skills that are now obsolete?

[Diamond_Dog]

Me: I was very skilled at what was called 'paste-ups and mechanicals' in the graphic design world. In order to print any catalog, brochure, instruction manual, advertising, etc. I used to have to 'spec type,' which means determining how much space a particular typeface or font will fill at different font sizes. Then I would take the copy down to the typesetter at our print shop., and when he returned my type in the correct size, I cut it up to position it (paste it) onto a sheet of white cardboard on which I had drawn the dimensions of the graphic design element I was creating. Some projects took weeks of doing this. I also did illustration, ran the big commercial camera, and made proofs for the customers. Now all this can be done in the blink of an eye on a computer.

What special obsolete skills do you have?

[MaryMagdaline]

1. Dewey decimal system

Typing with two hands

[Diamond_Dog]

14. Do libraries still use the Dewy decimal system? Or is that obsolete, too?

[Iris]

15. Yes. They still use DD. Mostly in public libraries.

[RamblingRose]

232. I live in a large metro county & they do not.

[Iris]

241. I think larger and smaller systems often use their own systems.

I'm an academic librarian. LOC is standard but I moved to a small private school and we use DD here.

[zeusdogmom]

74. Typing the cards that went into the library card catalogs using a manual typewriter

And filing them - ugh - what a pain that was.

Also running an office switch board where you actually had to plug a cord into the board to transfer a call.

[Iris]

83. I work in libraries now - can't even imagine the time that took!

[Diamond_Dog]

94. You and me both, Iris.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

165. Librarians are great people to ask questions to. If they don't already

Know the answer, they know how to find it out. I didn’t realize how bright a lot of them were until I worked at a bank and started going to the librarian for all kinds of things. We became good pals. I’m sure she got laid off when the got rid of all the “fluff” jobs that were not absolutely necessary and didn’t make money. I also lost my “fluff job” too as an HR employee specialist. Heaven forbid there should be people around that the employees could go to for counseling. My more senior boss was pissed because all the employees went to me when they found out I could be trusted and that I would actually help them, unlike her manager-kissing ass.

[Diamond_Dog]

93. Oh yes I remember manual typewriters.

Very slow and tiresome process.

[allegorical oracle]

215. Oh I love manual typewriters. Can't believe how expensive they've become. nt

[Dear_Prudence]

115. Helps with Googling!

I attribute my ability to find info on the web partly due to my job filing card catalogue cards. You probably excel at that skill also. And I had to correct subject cards manually; I remember using white out on "Ladies - Jobs" and typing in "Women - Careers." I 😄

[electric_blue68]

321. Oh, i think I very briefly watched someone do that IRL, or I even briefly (lunch hour?) filled in for a small board

Last edited Sun Nov 24, 2024, 09:36 PM - Edit history (1)

ETA 9:35P
very vauge unsure memory that just popped up as I scrolled past your post. But why would I even have such a memory, so it really might be true.

I might have done this for Charles Goodell's campaign HQ in '70 (fill in at lunch time). One of only 2 genuine Liberal Republicans I campaigned for bc the Dem had gotten very conservative on too many social issues! Never voted for one

[recovering_democrat]

86. a very strange set of skills to consider "obsolete" NOT

I did jail administration for a large city and retired after numerous years. It was pretty much figured that these jobs would remain very secure throughout history.

After retiring, I needed some social security credits to qualify for medicare in case the place I got health care funding could disappear at any time. So I went to work with the annual "temporary" time period of Income Tax Preparation (work late January through April 15) and go back to resting the rest of the year.

In my perspective, it is highly unlikely either of these jobs will be "discontinued" at any point in any anticipated action. May not ever be "fun" and "super well paid" but they are pretty sure to be around forever.

[Diamond_Dog]

96. I agree recovering_democrat.

You know what they say - the only sure things are death and taxes.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

168. They pay the counselors well. I just couldn't deal with working in such a drab place.

[k55f5r]

2. I too trained in graphic design and printing.

But I got an offer to go to work on the transalaska pipeline for over three times the money. Never looked back.
I did have a part-time job drafting steel detailing from architectural prints. This is all done by computer now. I'm just glad I don't have to smell the blueprint solution.

[Diamond_Dog]

12. Blueprint solution and film developer

Nasty smelling stuff!

[multigraincracker]

3. Back when I was a clerk and part of my job was in an office,

I use to operate an IBM card sorter. It would put a jumbled stack of IBM punch card into numerical order.
I thought it was a lot of fun. No more IBM cards now.

[Diamond_Dog]

16. That sounds interesting multigrain cracker.

[multigraincracker]

70. I loved that job. Had all kinds of task every day,

including setting up and maintaining about 20 teletype machines and scheduling cars onto the assembly line by type and number of options. Finally computers took over all of that. Worked there for 30 years and now retired for going on 23 years. While working there the company paid for my college degree. All I had to pay for was books.

[Diamond_Dog]

97. You sure can't find a job that pays for college now. Unless military. Good going, multigraincracker!

[lastlib]

176. They've all been folded, spindled, or mutilated.....

...or just trashed....

a few months ago, I ran across a couple of paper tapes(!) of BASIC computer programs I wrote in college.

[electric_blue68]

323. At one point over several decades when NYC had Ticker Tape Parades amongst the various things they'd tossed out the ....

windows were those colorful punch cards, and the 😄 little punched out rectangles!
Now those looked like teeny confetti! 😄 🎉

[wcmagumba]

4. I did much of what you describe at a medium size print shop but I mostly ran the big graphics camera...

later when we had scanners I ran those for transparencies and slides and did on PC screen color correction...I guess they must still do some scanning this way...

[Diamond_Dog]

20. So you can relate to how old print shops were run!

When I left my job, they were just starting to computerize everything. So you’re a few years ahead of me!

It was an interesting job and I liked it.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

180. We used to have an old-style printing dept that I used to do my newsletters. And we also had a graphic design dept doing

Very similar things.

[unblock]

5. Commuting? Putting on a tie?

[Diamond_Dog]

21. Haha unblock

Obsolete, indeed!

[Shermann]

205. The reports of the death of the daily commute are greatly exaggerated! nt

[Happy Hoosier]

393. Never had to wear a tie to work....

... thank Jeebus.

And I've been working remotely for 20 years now. DO NOT miss the 2 hours commuting each day.

[Xavier Breath]

6. The folks at the office used to love my Nixon impersonation.

Probably would be lost on today's kids

[Diamond_Dog]

22. Oh I'll bet you were pretty entertaining!

Yeah kids today wouldn’t get it.

[Xavier Breath]

53. "Let me make this perfectly clear."

Yeah, see that doesn't work on a message board

[Diamond_Dog]

99. Ha ha ha

See! It did work! Did you shake your head and flap your jowls?

[Prairie_Seagull]

235. I'll second that

hahaha

[electric_blue68]

327. Well for those of us who remember 😄

[FuzzyRabbit]

7. Film processing and printing photos.

I started out in a one hour lab developing 35mm film and making 3x5 and 4x6 prints. I can also make enlargements (5x7, 8x10) from film and slides, custom printing, etc. Now it can all be done with a desktop or laptop computer, in seconds and for pennies.

[Diamond_Dog]

23. Same with my job, computers made it obsolete.

[Dale in Laurel MD]

8. I must be one of the last people alive

who has hand-set type from a California case for a newspaper.

[Diamond_Dog]

24. I'm not familiar with what you described, Dale in Laurel MD

I actually never did any typesetting since we had special people in my shop who did that.

[brush]

47. Cold type came in and replace that and the Linotype machine afterward.

Last edited Sat Nov 23, 2024, 11:21 PM - Edit history (1)

[Diamond_Dog]

98. Yep - for sure, brush.

[electric_blue68]

332. While I was doing metal type in a typography class in Art College our....

professor took us to a cold type set up house. ?1971, or so.

[brush]

339. That was about the time I started my working at Newsday...

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

the big Long Island tabloid-sized daily. They had switched to cold type. Still had a Linotype Machine on display in their lobby for the general public.

Those operators really had to have some skill to run them, sorta like a drummer using all four appendages at the same time. I've only seen them in action on film.

I did the backpage, sports. Worked the nightshift wating for photos from the night Yankees, Knicks, Mets, Rangers or Islanders games that we'd rush to finish the page with the photo.

Good thing was I got to see my page the next morning.

It was pressure but a sense of accomplishment to have made the deadline and see the results the next morning on the backpage of the paper.

Sometimes had to go to the composing room where the guys recently trained using cold type did the paste-ups of the pages using wax machines. If anyone, an artist or editor from another dept anything, those union guys would drop what they were doing and raise hell because they knew what leverage they had. It was crazy, I learned fast as I had to see they were doing it right.

Wild, hectic times to meet that deadline.

[electric_blue68]

346. I loved Newsday NYC when it was printed for a few years!...

Wow, interesting, and hectic zoom get 'er done!

When I worked at the two different magazines: the last 2 was of their go to publishing shedule - the first day or so was slowish, and then increasing fast to last minute "aaaaa" at times! 😄 Photos for us; we placed xeroxes or b&w stats.

Looked up what a Linotype did with some partial idea about it from It's name. 👍

I might gave missed something, sorry, what did you do with the photos u were waiting for?

[brush]

390. I'd do my layout, then over to the sports department and hand it over to the editor, then check in the photo...

dept. to see if the photographer was back from the game in Manhattan. That was before digital cameras and being able go transmit photos electronically. I'd have left a space for the photo on the layout, marked FPO, for position only. Usually a vertical for a shot of a pitcher in wind up with a leg raised, or a basketball shot which would most likely be a vertical.

That would be for the one-star early edition, then later if the editor saw something on the contact sheet of a later development in the game, they'd want to do a re-plate, the two-star final edition and I'd have to stay even later to do another layout with the later photo.

I didn't mind even though it'd be after midnight by then as I would go home, sleep late and wouldn't have to be back at work until about 6:00 pm. Photographers still were using film slr cameras then. Nikons, Minoltas, Olympias. They also had Rolex 2 1/4s and 4/5s for some studio still shots with lights, umbrellas and screens etc.

I did the food section for a time and the photog's 2 1/4s had a polaroid back on them for quick proofs for me and the editor to look at before. developing the film and get a print of a shot. That was when the old,handy proportion wheel would come in for sizing...red crayon marker on the photo white margins for tje vertical and horizontal measurements, then take the print to the darkroom for film, then the composing room for platemaking etc.

It was busy, hectic but we'd get the job done.

[electric_blue68]

414. Yeah, i get it. It's not quite but similar to my work in the art dept except I didn't do layouts...

although there was the one week at a different job; a small catalouge house w in house photography where I helped set up jewelry & watches in a small room inside the big 2 story back space when the AD was on vacation. My boss the head photographer knew I had art & design background so they dragged me up front to the Art Dept, and had me do some layouts for a small catalog, then do the pu & m* for it with other 2 pu & m people.

I hope you enjoyed sports enough to work on that section bc of the hecticness! Esp having to make a redo from later game photos.

I enjoy sports enough to appreciate a great move, and a good photo in about any sport. Baseball is what I used to watch for team sports. Though I also love Olympic Hockey esp bc they almost never fight, and mess up the game!

Back at the magazine we had time to put a xerox or stat in place for our photos inside of just leaving a space & FPO.

At the catalouge house my friend was one of a few people doing hard goods. They rarely did food as the actual item, but had food often for visual embellishments. So while we could put our bag lunches in, it was often stocked with foods for shoots. 😄

Though one time the client was eating the shrimp after the shoot was taken, but the photos hadn't yet been returned from the outside photoshop; was actually was one of actual food items! Duh! Someone had to go get more to replace them!

Our photographers usyally used 8x10 cameras on stands. We'd get back 8 x 10 chromes. Occasionally smaller ones. I still have 1 of a experimental jewelry layout design idea I did when we had some down time.

Anything stand out as a really interesting food shoot for you?

Since our jewelry work was usually showing things for the next season I had to go out in the coldish weather, some snow still on the ground in Feb to the Flower Market X blocks away for flowers for a spring themed shoot. Got them extra wrapped up to keep them safe from the cold winds!

*I think you'll get a laugh out of this...
So, I'm in the AD working on the last pages of pu & m. However, it was also 1986 and the last game of the Met's World Series!

We had the radio on but, I wanted to go home, and see it on TV. Finally we were free! I dashed into the subway.
When I got to the change over station someone had a boom box on the walkway above me, and yelled "what's happening?!"
They tell me. Back onto my next, and final train.

I practically run home down our long hill. I do get there in time to see the last 1 1/2 innings! And the rest was Met's ⚾️ History. 🎉 😄
And I did go to their Ticker Tape parade!
(Yankees, too),

[brush]

435. Ahhhh...those were the days. And that '86 World Series was one of the best ever.

Have to say our field was pretty hectic but also rewarding. I got several good, color portfolio pieces from returning chromalenes of nicepages.

[electric_blue68]

331. Got it 👍 Had a typography class in Art College...

using metal type ?1970/71.
I hardly ever set text size type in class, but various ?sub headline sizes.

Then nearly 50 yrs later when I visited my aunt & uncle in a little village in Switzerland to make art with my aunt at her invitation in her 🥰 very big studio...she had metal type bc I think she sometimes set up type for her early children's books. Something like that. So I did a little set up myself!

What I didn't do was go up this little "mezzanine" that housed draws of big wooden type letters! These things were 12" - 18+" high! She'd print them with additional? etching or drawings she did.
She was soooooo talented!

[allegorical oracle]

9. Also illustration and graphic design. Put together many a mechanical. Kept up with

the advance of 'puters, but took three years off when my husband became terminally ill. Just those three years left me in the dust. Also edited books, which now involves tech skills I lack and (horrors) AI is upon us.

[Diamond_Dog]

25. I can relate, allegorical oracle

The part about advances happening so fast! I am sorry about your husband.

[electric_blue68]

333. {hug} for you. I remember looking at computer graphics books at the store. Debated about saving for a class etc...

But my life soon took a sharp turn, and it never happened at that point. Learned some later at the library, and elsewhere even later but not for work purposes.

I had done traditional pu & m.

[Ocelot II]

10. Telephone operator using cord switchboard.

Word processing using Wang system. Flight instructor teaching NDB instrument approaches.

[Diamond_Dog]

28. Like in the old movies, Ocelot? Did you have to say "Number, Please?"

Now, being a flight instructor sounds like a really interesting job!

[Ocelot II]

75. We just took incoming calls and transferred them to the right extension.

There were these cords that you plugged into orifices for each extension. Being a flight instructor was interesting because sometimes you'd get students whom you suspected of trying to kill you. When I was active as a CFI in the '90s GPS was only getting started and the commonly-used instrument approaches (limited visibility) all were based on radio signals transmitted from stationary antennas on the ground, either on or near the airport. The NDB (non-directional beacon) approach was especially challenging because it wasn't especially accurate and you had to make wind corrections, which could be really tricky.

[cachukis]

79. Well described.

[Diamond_Dog]

101. You had to be very knowledgeable

If you didn’t want an accident to happen! It must have been a satisfying job, though, teaching people how to fly an airplane.

[leftyladyfrommo]

124. I used to run the cord switchboard at a bank

I thought it was really fun.

We've made everything so boring.

[wryter2000]

139. I did that

I rather liked it

[electric_blue68]

334. Flight instructor! Very cool. Saw your post obviously some tricky times.

[cksmithy]

398. I was a long distance operator, sitting on a tall stool at a long huge board

for Pacific Telephone back in 1970. After going through initial training, the first call (my instructor was also on the call) I plug into was a person to person call from a local radio station on air, to Spiro Agnew, in Washington CA. Of course he wasn't available. I also used a Wang word processor in the very early 1980's. I also, ran the PBX board for Sears (1973) connecting incoming calls to departments, giving employees an outside line, and making the announcements that the store was closing, or calling the manager to report to the office.

[OnionPatch]

11. I'm a mapper

I used to use ink and mylar to make maps, and lots of weird equipment to manipulate aerial photos. That all became computerized and of course I had to learn GIS.

[Diamond_Dog]

33. Very interesting skill, OnionPatch.

[OnionPatch]

292. It really was.

Especially the field checking field trips.

[LAS14]

46. What's GIS? nt

[Metaphorical]

72. GIS Geospatial Information Systems

[electric_blue68]

338. Uses satilites for this?

[Borogove]

228. Same here, OnionPatch

During my career as a professional geologist, I became very skilled at making contour maps and geologic cross sections by hand. Computer programs, such as ArcGIS and Surfer, do all of that today.

[OnionPatch]

293. I spent the last twenty years working with ArcGIS.

Funny, I started out at art school, where I just happened to learn some drafting. I retired as an IT (GIS) Engineer. Life is strange! It's been a pretty good career, though. I'm happily retired now.

[electric_blue68]

347. I like contour maps interesting to look at. The cross section drawing sound interesting, too. I'm sure I've seen some..

on Google.

I'm thinking in part of a cross section from? Bryce Canyon descending further ?eastward into lower plateaus and more canyons?
Am I making sense? 😄

[electric_blue68]

337. Interesting! Maps are cool. How did did the ink do on the mylar?..

Was it specialized ink, or did you have to treat the mylar in some fashion?

I'm thinking of it "beading up".

[Mopar151]

13. "Blueprint reading" in several systems

with related precision measurement, aka manual inspection.

[Diamond_Dog]

102. Blueprints are obsolete? Sorry for dumb question.

[ForgedCrank]

172. True blueprints

are long obsolete. That said, we still call them blueprints even though they are created digitally now and simply printed out on large format printers when paper copies are needed. But the old way of making true blueprints isn't a thing anymore and making copies that way hasn't been a thing for many decades.

[Emrys]

336. One of my early office jobs included walking literal blueprints produced by our drawing office to a photo service

Last edited Sun Nov 24, 2024, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)

across town so they could produce bromides, then collect the blueprints and bromides when they'd finished with them. The bromides were supposedly camera-ready for incorporating into publications, though we sometimes had to have them amended too.

For the same firm, I had to proofread bromides of electronic circuit diagrams that were supposed to be translated from the US standard to UK standard, as they involved modems etc. that were starting to find widespread application. For some reason, I could do that accurately and easily, but it used to drive our tracers up the wall as some of them just couldn't get the hang of it. You could mark them up using a special soft blue chinagraph pencil that was invisible to the camera at the end of the process, then the tracers would ink in the changes.

[electric_blue68]

343. My dad waaaay back had real blue prints to look at where lights were placed (electrical engineer got into lightning) I..

remember that term; chinagraphic! Ha, I used a red one for ??? You had to peel off the covering when it got too short?

And your blue one; I bet had to be the equivalent of the non-reproducible photo blue pencil I used in mechanicals

[Emrys]

345. Yeah, I'm sure that's the same type of pencil

Those blueprints were VAST - way larger than modern AO size - and very cumbersome to handle. There was a specially designed cabinet where old ones were archived, and I occasionally used to have to hunt one out and wrestle with it if the firm wanted to have a new bromide made.

I hated working for that firm - the office atmosphere and politics were horrendous - but it did give me an entry on my CV that got me a foothold in publishing eventually. I got made redundant at a point where I was on the verge of quitting anyway. They offered me the chance to go freelance with a generous for the time guaranteed income, solely working on those modem bromides for their main source of business, a multinational which had been impressed with my work (it wasn't exactly brain science, but I apparently had a knack for it). I was so sick of the whole setup - and the fact I'd been working on parts listing the Tornado aircraft during the era when the UK went very jingoistic after the Falklands War - that I declined and got a job working for a landscape gardening and forestry firm for a pittance per week. That firm was also a nightmare, but at least I was outdoors getting my hands dirty (and calloused and ripped to shreds by brambles) and getting extremely fit rather than having to deal with that nonsense daily.

[electric_blue68]

348. Soubds like pretty good timing. Too bad the office wasn't so goid either, but...you did get fit...

Hopefully you had something for your bramble scratches & cuts w you.


And, oh yeah, I remember the Falkins War.
🙄

(I demo'd against thr Iraq War)

[Emrys]

351. Well, working in that office and the graphic coverage of the Falklands on TV

had a hand in radicalizing me in the Reagan years in my 20s and turning me into a full-time peacenik for a few years, so I was well up for it by the time of Bush II's Iraq adventure. My life would no doubt have been very different otherwise. I would never have met my wife, for one thing!

[electric_blue68]

353. Wow! Funny how things sometimes work out 👍..

I was in a DC March for Labor after Reagan went after our Air Traffic Controllers.

A pretty hideous man under that "avuncular" face/attitude. Blargh!

[electric_blue68]

372. I think... my dad had about a 3' x 3' foot table next to his desk, and...

and the blue print was laid out; but I'm pretty sure to his left the rest was rolled up. He would unroll it as needed to be looked at.

[Iris]

17. Dictaphone

[Scottie Mom]

60. And WordPerfert

Microsoft Word It is the worst word processing system in the world. It controls you and you cannot control it. I absolutely hate MS Word.

[Diamond_Dog]

104. I don't have much experience with those but I do remember those old word processors.

I typed Mr. Diamond’s masters’ thesis for him on one. Agree, very aggravating to use.

[fargone]

202. I love WordPerfect, been using it since the 90s.

I worked for a government agency and they eventually demanded that all documents be in MSWord. I would create all of mine in WP and convert to Word. Every once in a while that conversion would go badly.

[Scottie Mom]

254. Exactly

Do you know about shift F1 in MS Word? Well, it is nowhere as good as review codes, It does give you a bit of control over Word. it will show up in an it will show up in a box on the right hand side of the document. The indent control has at the top of the page. A selection for line breaks. You can take out that awful, horrible feature of widow/Orphan.

I literally despise all MS Word products.

[fargone]

260. Reveal codes has gotten me out a mess and frustration many times. That alone is worth it

[Scottie Mom]

340. AMEM!

MS Word is a guessing game. It’s not a clean slate. It has a hidden agenda whose only purpose is to fight the drafter every step of the way. Also, the results of a document done in MSW comes off, looking like a high school term paper, and not a professional document. I have had judges complement, not merely the content, but the elegant appearance of documents I have submitted to court. I simply remind the judge, that’s the difference between WordPerfect and MSW.

[musette_sf]

76. I was a crack transcriber back in the day

My special skill was transcribing body taps.

[Diamond_Dog]

109. I'm afraid to ask what body taps are .....

[musette_sf]

178. Wires

[Diamond_Dog]

186. Thank you musette_sf

[electric_blue68]

349. You mean like in wiretaps?! (a "der" question? 😄 )

[Diamond_Dog]

103. Ha, I remember my sister hated that dictaphone when she worked in a law office.

[Tadpole Raisin]

18. I have a rolleiflex twin lens reflex and a minolta slr

I can’t bear to part with them.

Are they antiques? Hell, am I an antique?

[brush]

42. Yep, all the big camera manufacturers switched to digital long ago, early 2000s. I'd keep your cameras though.

[electric_blue68]

350. I had a wonderful Mamiya Sekor SLR w duo light meters...

Average and spot.
My HS graduation gift!

Bc I loved taking R&R concert photos of my favorite performers, and I was darn good at it(!) the spot meter was great for measuring the various, often bright lights on them. Really helped prevent over exposures!
Occasionally it was also great for certain urban, and landscape pics, too!

Don't have it anymore

[BOSSHOG]

78. I got a Minolta X-700 in 1983

With a 50 MM and a 70-210 Zoom. Also have an X-370 body. Haven’t used in years but they are secured in the basement. To me that package is priceless. I’ll never get rid of them.

I own a Canon and a Nikon and they don’t compare to the Minoltas, however the other two are digital. I’m a fossil and prefer film.

If you can put antique tags on a 25 year old car you can put antique tags on an old Minolta. It’s like calling the Mona Lisa an old painting.

[Mike 03]

19. Drafting and "Industrial design"

I never made money at it but took as many courses as I could. "Mechanical Drawing," "Industrial Design," "Home Design I," "Home Design II." I just loved moving that T square up and down the drafting board, using the compass, triangle, erasure shield, etc... I'm guessing that's all gone now. I still have a drafting board and implements, though.

Also film editing the old-fashion way, where you cut and splice your print. Luckily we transitioned over to video editing in my senior year of college, but I'm positive what I learned is probably barely valuable to modern filmmakers.

[Diamond_Dog]

107. I learned that old way of film editing you described when in college.

T-square and drafting table was what I used for many years, too.

[pfitz59]

26. Map making and lettering.

Hand-drafting. All computerized now.

[Diamond_Dog]

110. My dad learned drafting to become an engineer

I have his old lettering book. It’s probably an antique now. Your had a very interesting profession, pfitz59.

[Demobrat]

27. I remember paste-up people. I wrote the copy you pasted up.

I remember when typesetters were replaced by Quark virtually overnight.

My job wasn’t really affected then. I typed on a computer keyboard instead of an IBM Selectric.

But now copywriters - or as we are now referred to, content providers - are being replaced by AI.

Thank goodness I’m too old to care.

[Diamond_Dog]

111. Yes, AI is invading everything now and not always for the better.

I typed on an IBM Selectric when I helped out during the summer in my dad’s office. You still had to use carbon paper to make copies, though.

[mucholderthandirt]

214. Loved the IBM Selectrics! You could change the typeface on those, and the sound of the keystrokes!

My first job, I used a Selectric to type up mimeograph things to run on a mimeograph machine to make copies. Later I could just type on regular paper and use a copier machine. Much easier to fix typos then.

At any rate, you guys have had interesting jobs. Pretty much everything I've learned is obsolete, like all the computer programing stuff, or else I'm too physically and mentally decrepit to do them.

My days as a reporter for a weekly paper, doing secretarial work, maintenance on textile machines, or on plastic injection machines, or even being in the military, are long over. I could probably be able to catch up on some of the skills, but I just can't work like that anymore. It's sad. I never thought I'd be this "old" at just 66.

[electric_blue68]

425. I saw my first IBM Selectric at Art College. I had to do some kind of text for a project, or maasybe something for...

myself.

I was thrilled that I could now get bold, and italic type in the mix! 😄

[electric_blue68]

354. At the small magazine publisher I worked for the editor would come in to fit articles that ran too long...

And, oh, those teeny ,'s and .'s we had to correct! 😄😮
" were pretty tricky, too! Everything else was relalively easyish, but we had to work fast esp the last few days with a very sharp, and stabby exacto blade on a handle!😄

[brush]

29. I used to do mechanicals olso on illustration board with overlays of amber or ruby lith. Also keylines. Then computers..

came in and learned to do it on them. I was around before Photoshop had layers. Photoshop 3.0 was the first one with layers until Photoshop Creative came in, you didn't always have to upgrade to every new edition of it.
Adobe figure out how to put a stop to that by making the earlier versions no longer compatible.

Now it's all on the cloud and you have to rent it...pay a fee every month for the service.

Later I became an art director with a staff of designers and photogs, some stringers. Also commissioned illustrators.

[Diamond_Dog]

112. That's awesome, brush.

I did all those same boards too. We called them keylines. I left before computers took over. Sounds like you had a very rewarding career.

[electric_blue68]

355. Amber, and rubylith! I remember those. Esp amberlith at Scholastic Magazines...

My college friend hired me for about 2 weeks/month for 1 1/2 yrs.

And your became an Art Director, too? Cool.
There was an overarching AD for all the magazines, but my friend, and another designer I eventually worked for did a lot of designing for 2 magazines each.

He also hired free lance illustrators. So I'd be looking over all the pretty cards they left w him.

[brush]

389. Yeah, I'd put all the illustrator's cards on the wall for when I needed a certain style of illustration.

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 01:54 PM - Edit history (1)

[electric_blue68]

417. Nice! My friend just put them in a drawer next to him. I like your idea better! 😄👍

[hauckeye]

30. Computer programming in PL/1

I got my degree in the 1970’s IBM mainframe era

[DBoon]

58. Computer programming in RPG/400

Started working in the 1980s minicomputer era. Helped companies transition from low end mainframes to minicomputers.

[Diamond_Dog]

114. That's beyond my ability to understand but it sounds awesome, DBoon.

[Diamond_Dog]

113. That was my husband's era too. Good going, hauckeye!

[Shrek]

212. Same here and also COBOL n/t

[hauckeye]

217. Fortran also?

[Shrek]

224. Yes, forgot about that one!

Very early on and not for long.

[La Coliniere]

31. Drafting, old school without computers

[Diamond_Dog]

116. That's a skill that not many people can acquire successfully-good on you La Coliniere.

[electric_blue68]

424. How many kids have T-squares from both parents? I did. My dad must have used his before he got married...

Maaaybe for school, but I think more for some earlier job.

Now my mom she ended up after moving to California during the earlier part of WW2 became head draftsman (woman) at Hughes Aircraft!

She oversaw at least 25 - 50 people, maybe even close to 100! My sis, and I didn't even know she was the head draftsman till a cousin told at wedding for another cousin. I think he overheard us talking, came by and said....like - oh,no...she wasn't just a draftsman; she was the head draftsman. We were like Wooah!

I really need to contact an archivist at the company that bought HA and see if they have any photos from then.

[Lithos]

160. I have that skill as well

I learned it and CAD at the same time. There is a feel and freedom on the board that you can't recreate in a CAD system. If I had the space in my house, I would definitely acquire an old drafting table. I still indulge in my love of mechanical pencils and particularly love collecting 0.3mm pens.

[Prairie_Seagull]

248. Don't get me started on office supplies.

It's like a fetish haha I love em.

[PJMcK]

32. Music calligraphy

Until the 1990s, most music was copied by hand onto special music paper that was used in a printing process known as “diazo,” kind of like blueprinting. Copyists were trained to use special pens and inks on those papers. The style and quality of the handwriting was commensurate with the level of pay charged per page.

In college, I had to take a class in calligraphy to learn all the rules of music notation. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of pens, nibs, guards, French curves, an electric eraser (looked like a scary vibrator!), drafting table and more. Copy work helped pay for college and afterwards.

It all ended in the ‘90s when notation software was introduced. By the early 2000s, nobody copied music by hand. All that gear I had was worthless! However, working on a computer is far more efficient and the output is superior.

[Diamond_Dog]

118. That's awesome, PJ. I never heard of music calligraphy. Very interesting!

Don’t take this the wrong way but your electric eraser fascinates me! Never saw one before.

I, too, have lots of drawing aids that are probably useless/worthless.

[PJMcK]

211. It looked like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156239474097?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=156239474097&targetid=2299003535955&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9004913&poi=&campaignid=21214315381&mkgroupid=161363866036&rlsatarget=pla-2299003535955&abcId=9407526&merchantid=5302017419&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_QDh_4PGNT99O-JiE2SqoJwWA2Y&gclid=Cj0KCQiAuou6BhDhARIsAIfgrn4LTE8oiASU5cQ5si4qm3aWPiuSwt38Oq76QL6UnJZunjofxsIZh6YaAsI5EALw_wcB

The eraser was a rubber column about 1/4” in diameter and about 8” long, about the size of a No. 2 pencil. It would go inside the center column of the device. The device would spin the column very fast when you pushed the button on the side. It made erasing mistakes simpler.

The music paper was translucent and the staff lines were printed on the underside of the paper. The staff lines could be seen easily and you would write the music on the staves. If you had to erase, only the music (in ink) would be erased because the staves were on the other side of the paper! Clever and efficient.

It was a craft and many musicians learned music copying as a side skill. Of course, computers made this method as obsolete as the Medieval scribes of yore.

[Diamond_Dog]

431. Thank you PJ!

What a great explanation. This is all new to me. How interesting!

[electric_blue68]

357. Wow. May or maynot have known this . How many yrs did you do this?

[PJMcK]

383. About 20-25 years

There were many projects that I wrote by hand. Compared to today, it was ponderous:

1. Composer/arranger would write a song, usually in pencil in shorthanded notation.
2. A copyist would re-write the song in proper notation with page turns, etc.
3. The publisher would have an editor review and/or re-notate the copyist’s work for publication.
4. This version would be sent to a print shop where the music would would be typeset using a specially modified manual typewriter.
5. There would be several back-and-forth between the publisher and the print shop till the music was to everyone’s satisfaction.
6. The “plates” (really just camera-ready sheets) were then sent to a printer/distributor.

Today, there are half as many steps that can occur in a third the time.

My work has evolved more into rights management and I haven’t had to copy music in a while.

[electric_blue68]

405. Sounds like a "tennis match" back and forth! I think I saw a...

photo of a musical notation typewriter once. What a beautiful machine!

[PJMcK]

411. There were several different machines

This is the one that my colleagues used. It was an Olympia that had been modified.

https://typespec.com/1975-olympia-sg3-music-writer-for-sale-985/

I'm impressed that it's being offered at such a high price since computer generated music printing is so much easier and accurate.

Actually, there's been a disaster in the computer printed music business. For 35 years, a program called Finale was the dominant software for music preparation. However, the company recently announced that they were ceasing support for their program. Tens of thousands of musicians have been screwed over by this corporate decision. I've actually bought a couple of computers and "frozen" them with the software and matching OS so I can convert the tens of thousand files that I have in Finale's format. It's a monumental disaster.

Anyway, it's been a nostalgic moment to think of hand copying!

[electric_blue68]

416. Woah, not good for them! I love the Musical Notation keyboard!...

The photo I saw was of a definitely older model.

And while not hand music notation; learning calligraphy in Art College as a left handed was sooo difficult! Hopefully you are right handed.

[Daigan]

34. Mental Arithmetic

At my last job I did seven times eight minus ten in my head and a co-worker had to check it with his calculator.

[Diamond_Dog]

120. You have a very impressive skill - not necessarily obsolete, either!

My youngest son can do that mental arithmetic, too. It’s a talent that sure passed me by.

[Maeve]

174. Lord, we were at a McD's window last year

Bill was 10.15, gave them 20.25 and they had to ask for help with the change. Ans got it wrong.....

[Jeebo]

267. Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about that.

It was set in a far future time when nobody knew how to perform arithmetical calculations with pen and paper any more, or in their head either. Instead everybody had calculator-like devices strapped to their waist like a belt that they punched problems into and that then showed the answer. These devices had been around for so long that everybody was utterly dependent on them. Nobody could solve these problems any more at all without their calculating devices.

Then, one day, some guy re-discovered and re-invented the skill of writing down arithmetic problems and solving them on paper. Everybody thought it was some kind of magic trick! Nobody could believe that anybody could do that! What's the trick?! Where's the hidden device?! Who's secretly communicating the answer to you?!

It's been decades since I read that Asimov short story. I'd like to read it again. It's kind of prophetic in that it makes me think of cell phones. People nowadays are becoming way too dependent on cell phones. Wherever you go, everybody seems to be trying to memorize what's on that tiny screen in their hands. Some day, I tell you, there's going to be a price to pay for our technological and psychological dependency on cell phones.

-- Ron

[electric_blue68]

358. Um, 46?

[MizLibby]

35. AAA Tow Truck Dispatcher

using Thomas Guides, a phone and a radio.

[Diamond_Dog]

122. That sounds like a very helpful job, to say the least.

GPS is one good thing that came from computers.

[happybird]

149. We used to love the TripTix map and info packets AAA would send on request

My college bf and I did a lot of traveling around the US in the 90’s and TripTix were so dang handy.

I guess navigating by paper map is obsolete now, too.

[exboyfil]

209. We still carry a road atlas

I did love those AAA Trip Tix and info books.

[LakeArenal]

36. Double entry accounting and bank reconciliations before computers.

[Freddie]

57. Me too

Keeping everything on long sheets of “accounting paper”. Was very fast on the desktop calculator and number pad on the desktop computer. Now I don’t even keep a calculator, just use excel if I need to add a column of numbers.

[LakeArenal]

63. Oddly enough here in Costa Rica they still keep paper files.

Watched them search for my medical records on an open shelf piled, I’m guessing, alphabetically.

[Diamond_Dog]

123. That sounds very interesting, Lake. Was it something you liked?

I wouldn’t last one week working in a bank.

[LakeArenal]

233. I liked it very much. But banks are notoriously misogynistic.

I was promised a promotion after a certain time and when that came they hired a man with no banking experience.

A woman that worked there decades said they would never make her a cashier or VP because she didn’t have three knees…..
A left knee, a right knee or a weeenie.

That was truth.

[electric_blue68]

360. Wow, boo on them Maybe some are better, now

.

[electric_blue68]

359. I took accounting 101 & 102? As a fres small business course for POC & Women small business that ?NYU gave...

I did end up using bc I didn’t return to the small business in commercial art.

However when I helped an accountant at a small hotel I knew what I was doing putting down the numbers.

[Sneederbunk]

37. Not necessarily a job skill, but I know Morse Code.

[Diamond_Dog]

125. Very impressive, Sneederbunk.

[hunter]

38. Repairing CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors and televisions.

I've still got the tools.

Transcribing hand written Fortran programs and data to punched cards.

wikipedia

Medical lab Radioimmunoassay testing. This was used for many common tests, including pregnancy testing.

[Diamond_Dog]

127. That sounds very interesting, hunter. Did you like the job?

[hunter]

252. I enjoyed repairing monitors and television...

... especially when I was doing it as a volunteer for senior citizens and students who otherwise might not have computers. There are some very high voltages inside CRT monitors so there's an element of danger too, which I've always found attractive in any kind of work.

I hated "production" RIA work in medical labs, actually any of the jobs I've ever had that could clearly be automated but weren't. There was an element of danger in that too, handling raw blood samples from random people who might have any number of contagious diseases, not to mention the radioactive materials. We dumped it all down the drain when the tests were run. Nah, it wasn't all that dangerous if one was diligent about their safety gear. I liked doing this kind of work in research labs, it wasn't so monotonous. Or maybe it was monotonous and just didn't feel that way exploring new territory.

Back in the keypunch days the work environment was incredibly sexist. Men did the "real" work of programming and collecting data, writing it down on paper tablets by hand, and that was handed off to the women who did the clerical work of transcribing programs and data to punched cards.

My mom, who was a world class typist, had made me take typing classes in middle school, which put me ahead of many other science and engineering students in college. The more affluent among my fellow students would sometime hire people, again mostly women, to do their keypunch work or typing.

[KitFox]

39. Transcribing dictation from

a Dictabelt system. The typewriter I used was a Royal manual. Taking x rays and developing them in a dark room. These were a couple of tasks I had at a part time job during college years. Thanks for taking me wayyyy back to those long ago days. 😊

[Diamond_Dog]

129. Did you actually take X-rays, KitFox? as a college student?

I learned to type on a Royal manual.

[KitFox]

201. I did, Diamond Dog.

I had a part time job at a children’s clinic a block off campus. I had no experience but they trained me to take and develop x -rays, read urine samples, hematocrit and hemoglobin tests. The doctor was writing a baby book and that was what I transcribed from the dicta machine. I learned to type on those royal typewriters, too, in high school. Half were pink and the other half were turquoise!😄

[LisaM]

40. I used to send and receive telexes.

I was pretty young. I worked in a college bookstore and during book rush we had to take inventory and order from our network of college stores. We typed it into a machine that put holes in the tape (ticker tape!) and then feed the tape into a reader.

We also received tapes every day with requests from other stores. At busy times, we had wastebaskets full of it (alas, the day of the ticker tape parade was over).

[Diamond_Dog]

131. That sounds interesting and fun, LisaM.

[LisaM]

258. It actually was.

It was really fun to see the reader "read" the holes and turn it into text. And like everything else then, a typo here and there didn't matter, no one cared. And it was also really fun to wave the used ticker tape in the air.

[electric_blue68]

361. Like the unreadble holes turning back into text. As far as ticker tape goes...

as a NYC'r I've been to ticker tape parades. So much fun!

My first one was in ?69 for the Moon Landing Astronauts. It had real ticker tape with the Stock Exchange companies abbreviations along below them the current stock price in blue ink. Very cool. Like gigantic white skinny streamers coming out of open windows! 😄🎉🧡

[Lulu KC]

395. I did, too!

I remember how stiffly the keys moved! Typing it all out, then feeding the tape in and watching the machine type it, right? I really kind of loved it.

[Lulu KC]

396. That can't be right

But it's how I remember it. Googling it now.

[surfered]

41. The Army said I was an expert with the M16 and the hand grenade

Not much demand for a man over 70 with those skills and I’m out of practice. Additionally, the Army doesn’t even use the M16 anymore and I can’t throw anything overhand without pain.

Don’t want to go back into that line of work anyway.

[underpants]

62. 😆 have you ever thrown a live hand grenade (or two)?

There are a lot of of us here and given the wars going on there are way too many around the world.

Not constantly but it does cross mind from time to time that I actually had and threw a live hand grenade. There was an E6 down in the expansive foxhole (with dug out gutters) with me. He handed me a live grenade. He happened to be from my hometown but I didn’t feel like it was time for a casual conversation. Big throw (I had quite an arm then too). We made it….and then he handed me another one so…let’s do this again.

Seems odd now, and it was.

[surfered]

87. I've thrown two live ones. Interesting story; during Basic Training

at Ft Lewis Washington. The hand grenade instructor pulled the pin on a grenade and walked over to the bleachers, where the four platoons were seated.

He handed it to the first soldier, who handed it to the next. It went from man to man, each making sure to grasp it firmly, holding the spoon tight as not to arm it. If passed thru 200 of us and then back to the instructor. He tossed it on the ground and it went “pop” like a firecracker.

It was a training device that focused the mine.

[underpants]

108. Jesus.

That shows some serious discipline to sit there.

I remember looking at the E6 in the hole with me thinking, “He has no idea who the hell he’s handing alive grenade to”. That was out of respect. This THIS is what you do every week?

[surfered]

128. i thought the same thing. I did not want that job

[electric_blue68]

362. Woah

[Diamond_Dog]

132. I don't blame you surfered.

[rsdsharp]

43. Analog disc jockey and audio production. Some of the skills would still transfer:

board operation, timing, mic work, etc. However, everything today is digital. All the music, commercials. promos, jingles are on a server. When I was in radio, we played music from vinyl, which in later years were dubbed onto broadcast cartridges (carts) for use on air. Commercials, promos, PSAs, and jingles were carted from the start of my career.

Production, the creation of elements for on air use, was done on reel-to-reel tape decks, and then dubbed to cart. Edits were done with a grease pencil, razor blade and splicing tape. All of that is done digitally, now.

[AverageOldGuy]

106. Our studio equipment was all reel-to-reel

Vinyl music. Commercials were on small tape reels, had to put the reel on the player, feed the tape through the player, listen through the headphones to cue the tape.

[rsdsharp]

126. I got in just after that. A station I worked at (3 times) had reel decks for commercials,

but that was 3-4 years before I got there. There were multiple commercials on the reels. They used the counter to get close before finally cuing them up. I bet that left lots of time to get ready for your next set!

[Diamond_Dog]

133. That sounds very interesting, rsdsharp

A job in radio in the days gone by would be so cool. Did you like being a disc jockey?

[rsdsharp]

145. I liked being a jock. I also worked as a music director, program director, and did a lot of production,

including voice over work for a local TV station. Of all of those, I liked production the best.

Unfortunately, medium market radio didn’t pay very well (it’s worse now, proportionately, with consolidation), and management was often moronic. WKRP was wildly wrong as to the technical stuff, but could have been a documentary as far as the staff. I had one GM who referred to the air staff as “buzzards,” and the sales staff as “eagles.” He wondered why I quit and started selling jewelry.

[electric_blue68]

363. In another Parallel Earth I'm a Rock but also free form DJ , so I can add any genre in; here, and there

🔊 🎼🎶🎵🎸🎷🎻🪕🪘🎛🥰👍

[at140]

44. I coded million+ lines in FORTRAN

I don't think Fortran is in use any more.

[keep_left]

51. It's still available on many systems, particularly Unix/Linux...

...and it's my understanding that Fortran is still used to some extent in weather forecasting, or at least it was a few years ago.

[patphil]

52. Fortran is still alive and well...used in a variety of Scientific applications.

https://www.matecdev.com/posts/why-fortran-still-used.html

COBOL is also still used extensively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL

[dwayneb]

421. FORTRAN code still runs at the heart of NASTRAN

Which is an engineering analysis code developed by NASA back in the 60's and 70's. Still used extensively today in the aerospace field.

[Lithos]

163. Still heavily used...

Fortran has a niche market in hi-performance code for scientific algorithms. It pretty much out of the box supports parallel processing. It also has millions of lines of code which just work - no one wants to reinvent this, so they still keep using it.

[Shermann]

206. It is still used in climate reseach

So, after January 20 it really won't be needed!

[redstatebluegirl]

45. Shorthand not sure if anyone uses it anymore.

[SheilaAnn]

61. Me too! I don't really know if they still use it or not. I even studied court stenography, a whole different ballgame.

[Diamond_Dog]

140. Don't courts still use stenographers? That would be way beyond my ability, any of it!

[DURHAM D]

80. I still use it for note taking. nt

[Diamond_Dog]

134. My mom knew shorthand.

I can’t believe anyone could learn to do that. Very impressive

[redstatebluegirl]

299. When I was in high school girls were put in typing and

steno class. I was an honor student, I had made up my mind to go to college, but those skills served me well in college. I took notes in shorthand and typed well enough to type my own papers very efficiently .

There are no useless skills in my book. I used to tell my students that everything you learn goes into your toolbox to be retrieved when needed.

[raccoon]

313. Me too. But I can't do it fast now.

[LeftInTX]

342. Unfortunately, I forgot it very quickly

Took it my senior year. Freshman in college, could not remember it. I had done very in the class. I couldn't believe I had forgotten it so quickly.

[keep_left]

48. Printed circuit layout using tape and permanent ink on Mylar film.

I also worked from mostly hand-drafted schematics, and had to observe the "rules" about layout for analog circuits (it's much less forgiving than digital, which has at least some noise immunity). I still pretty much do my schematic work by hand, and have only recently started using CAD software to make them. However, I've been using software to do printed circuit work for a long time now, and I wouldn't go back. Actually, I can't--the new SMD parts are so tiny that doing a layout by hand is pretty much impossible.

[Diamond_Dog]

138. Sounds fascinating and beyond my ability, keep_left.

[keep_left]

152. No, not beyond anyone's abilities, really. Just heroically dull, but a necessary...

...and important aspect of engineering. I've been doing it since I was in my late teens--at first very badly, but you learn quickly. It's really just a specialized kind of drafting.

[dwayneb]

423. Yep I did that a few times

We had to produce one-off circuit boards for telemetry testing. They were pretty crude, but got the job done. I remember having to place that black tape on the Mylar then send it off to a company to have the board manufactured.

[bucolic_frolic]

49. Need computer skills upgrades

I fine for what I do, but i need many courses: Office, Python, data analytics.

[BigmanPigman]

50. Yes, all skills of illustrators

My intense training in one of the top art schools in the US in 1980 was obsolete by the time it was 1985. I still am old school and use my trusty Xacto knife, kneaded eraser, t-square, and trace paper. I make earrings, pins and bumper stickers that are anti-tRump and they take forever to make but I am a perfectionist. I have received tons of compliments when I wear them...truly a labor of love.

I still make Christmas cards and most of the people who receive them have no clue how hard it is and time consuming as well. I do them for myself, not for the appreciation of others. I take pride in my 100% "hand made" artwork.

[Diamond_Dog]

92. BigmanPigman I bet your cards are beautiful

I have a friend into card making - she taught classes in it - so I know how much talent and skill it takes.

Good for you making the anti-rump items. I live in a very red area so I have to be careful with stuff like that.

[FakeNoose]

255. B-P I hope you decide to share photos of some of your creations

I'd love to see some of your work, and I'm sure others would too!

[BigmanPigman]

312. I've tried to post them but it never

works. I'm an old school artist and tech and I never got along well. I have sent some of my images to other DUers and that worked out, somehow.

[electric_blue68]

364. Good on you. I wanted to be a f/t freelance illustratior, but it never worked out....Did some....

mostly black, and white.Some paid, some for fun in a group amateur writers, and artists. A few were quite wonderful. Others pretty good to very good. I tried a few different color styles, but somewhat later I fell in love with using professional colored pencils on Canson colored paper in a heavy pressed style. That was my 3rd portfolio. But I got no takers.

I spent years going to NYC Society of Illustrators's yearly 2 part, then 3 part Annual Shows. Just loved seeing Original works! Bought several books of a few year's shows.

Though I had a severe artist block for ? 2+yrs some time ago; it slowly, then rushingly came back. Kept drawing on and for decades. Have tp get back to physical drawing. Been doing digital art for 2+ yrs

[electric_blue68]

373. I think what I did for years was make Christmas, or mostly New Year cards by making one master card, then xerox them...

At first in B&W. Once I added like almost 3/32nds of Letraset type. Just 2 or 3 words. But sooo teeny!
Though one time I had one printed on colored paper, and added hand touched bits of colored paint, or something.

One time I had a thicker colored card stock cover I made a design on, and xeroxed, then assembled inside 3 mini flip books I'd xeroxed from hand drawings.

Then when color xerox machines got really good I often did a full color piece. One time I did the color xeroxing and adds good paint accents.

[BigmanPigman]

400. It's very time consuming, no matter

which technique I choose to use, that can be partially reproduced then individually mailed in special "fragile" envelopes. The mailing of my 3-D card designs is very expensive since each envelope costs $5.50. No one realizes how much time and money goes into them. It is definitely a labor of love.

[electric_blue68]

407. Oooo, 3-D card designs; sounds great!

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)

I tried a pop up card or two for fun. Recently saw a gorgeous pop up book. I think it was about trees, and plants.

I should try something again. I like a challenge here, and there!

[Hekate]

54. Love this thread, Diamond Dog. It's a great walk down memory lane. ☺️

[Diamond_Dog]

141. Thank you, Hekate!

I’m overwhelmed with the responses. So interesting! We have such a talented bunch here at DU.

[snowybirdie]

55. Mine is

Gregg shorthand

[Diamond_Dog]

147. Very difficult to master. My mom used it when she was a secretary.

[usonian]

56. Making fries at McDonalds.

WAIT!

(Sarcasm) < --- The need for that just seems to increase.

[Diamond_Dog]

148. Ha ha ha

I love your vintage photo, Usonian.
My husband and my son both worked at Mickey Ds when in college.

[usonian]

150. Those were the days.

Those were the autos!

[Diamond_Dog]

153. My husband worked one summer at a box factory while in college

And bought himself a ‘63 Chevy Super Sport with the money. You sure can’t buy a car with one summers’ work these days. He loved that car.

[FakeNoose]

187. I remember when those McDonald's hamburgers were 15 cents!

I think you got a Coke for 10 cents, and fries were also 10. Then they came out with Big Macs that cost a lot more. I want to say they were 49 cents but I can't remember for sure. Pretty soon the hamburgers went up to a quarter, but that still seemed cheap.

[usonian]

197. I seem to remember these prices.

Didn't work there very long. It only FELT like 20 years.

[Diamond_Dog]

218. Now you pay several bucks just for the milkshake.

[FakeNoose]

257. Great -- I'd peg these prices for the late 60s or early 70s

(Also the artwork looks like the late 60's.) Inflation hit by the mid-70's and this had to be way before then.

On another note ... I can remember buying gas for $.25 per gallon! The regular price was between .30 and .33 per gallon but some gas station ran a "sale" for .25 cents. This had to be maybe 1971 or '72, long before the oil embargos.

[LeftInTX]

344. Fifteen cents puts it 63-65 ish

I remember this place called Dicks in Seattle. Fifteen cents. McDonald's prices were the same.
By 1974, McDs burgers were 25-35 cents

[Climate Crusader]

59. Stone tool manufacture.

I'm an archaeologist. If you need a mastadon dispatched with a stone tool, I'd be offended if I was not your first call.

[Diamond_Dog]

154. I will make a note to remember to call you first, Climate Crusader.

[electric_blue68]

365. Cool. So you mean (called); flint napping?

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 08:38 PM - Edit history (2)

Well, when the de-extinction of the - is it the Wooly Mamoth (vs the Mastedon) you might a call.

[House of Roberts]

64. I can still make metal parts on a manual mill or lathe.

Began using CNC in 1979, mostly on milling applications, and I can still do manual trigonometry when needed to calculate tool positions on a part, but I can also program with Surfcam (CAD/CAM).

[Diamond_Dog]

155. Sounds very impressive, House of Roberts.

[Straw Man]

65. Yes.

I'm literate in the English language and have more than a passing familiarity with its grammar, syntax, and diction. The reaction to this in the contemporary workplace falls somewhere between "Who gives a shit?" and "We can get machines to do that."

[Diamond_Dog]

156. I know exactly what you mean, Straw Man.

Nobody cares about spelling and grammar any more. We’ve gotten lazy since we all have Spellcheck.

[Straw Man]

203. Thanks.

Spellcheck? What a shit-show! In my experience, it creates as many problems as it fixes. If people spell "definitely" wrong, I will still know what they mean. When Spellcheck changes it to "defiantly," it creates unintended meanings that leave me shaking my head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

[underpants]

66. Listening, apparently. Comprehending emails or reading to the end.

I love my boss but I can see the wheels turning as they wait for the chance to tell the world what they are SURE the world is waiting to hear. I’ve seen them actually repeat questions in staff meetings that were just asked. Not on their phone either. Just totally in their own head. I play a game trying to craft emails that answer all possible questions. It’s unpossible.

They aren’t the only one either.

[Diamond_Dog]

158. Do you think we all have developed short attention spans, underpants?

I know what you mean and sometimes I find my own mind drifting away to some other subject.

[underpants]

230. I think some attention goes inward.

I think some people here one part of what’s being said and their mind just starts generating what they have to say. I do that in a way if a joke pops in my head. I have to take notes at staff meetings so I have to pay attention to everything said. Also, it’s just the way I’ve always been. I learned a long time ago to appreciate story telling and that includes taking in the structure of HOW the story is crafted.

[Diamond_Dog]

245. What you said sounds familiar.

Maybe it’s because we often feel rushed, in a hurry to move on to something else, etc.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

67. I used to be good at redlining which is where you mark changes in documents

Since the early 1990s you now use computer redlining

[Diamond_Dog]

161. Computers have taken over so many jobs. Some for the better and some times not.

[Journeyman]

68. I perfected those same skills, Diamond Dog, but managed to roll with the times . . .

and moved into computer graphics in 1989, about 12 years after I got into graphics.

The move to computer graphics had its issues -- there were the silly years, when everyone was being told their secretary could do all their graphics -- but it has been a good experience for me. I struck out on my own in ’94 and met with success never contemplated in common hours.Now I’m preparing to retire, and glad for it, too. My skills are not falling into disrepute, but my tolerance for corporate intervention with the tools of the trade is at a breaking point --- fonts I spent a fortune on no longer work with the latest programs, programs I built a career upon no longer work as expected.

[Diamond_Dog]

164. That's very discouraging, Journeyman

And I totally understand your frustration. “Your secretary can do all your graphics now”. Isn’t that a joke.
I am glad you had an overall good experience, though.

[lastlib]

69. I was a beast with a slide rule......

Some of my younger work colleagues had never seen one until I brought one in to show them.

[Dear_Prudence]

119. Me too!

I was the only one in my college physics class still using one, circa 1974.

[Diamond_Dog]

166. I'll bet they were gobsmacked with your slide rule demonstration, lastlib.

[brush]

169. Proportion wheels for sizing photos or graphics up or down work much like them.

Used slide rule in geometry class and the proportion wheel came easily when I worked professional in graphic design.

[Diamond_Dog]

246. That proportion wheel was like an extension of my right arm some days!

[brush]

249. Yep, indispensable.

[electric_blue68]

367. Ha, I was just going to make a post about the Proportion Wheel before I saw this! 😄

I suddenly thought..."no one's mentioned the proportion wheel yet, and how did I forget it myself!

I loved that thing! Soooo useful.

[electric_blue68]

366. Waaaaaay back my dad had one. I tought they were pretty cool....

I asked him to show me some basics, but I ended up going..."duhhhh".

[3catwoman3]

71. Hand written notes in patient records.

I detest EMR - electronic medical records. I'm glad I'm retired.

[Diamond_Dog]

167. I totally understand, 3catwoman3.

Although I do appreciate when my doctor can tap a few keys and see my records from all my other doctors.
Handwritten notes are probably neat more informative though.

[madamesilverspurs]

73. Counting back change

Learned how to do that in second grade, came in handy in every retail job I ever had. Sounds silly, I know. But I have noticed that too many cashiers wait for their machines to tell them how much change to give back. A couple weeks back we went to get some dinners at KFC (Mom's favorite), and the guy working the counter was totally flummoxed when handed a $20 bill; he had to go back to the office to get instruction on how to handle it. We offered to pay with a card instead, but he was determined to finish what he'd started. And other workers came over to watch, apparently we were quite the anomaly.


.

[FuzzyRabbit]

100. Back when I worked retail, my partner Dick and I were older than the other workers.

Both of us counted change the old fashioned way, ie. "that's two sixty-five, seventy five, three dollars, and two makes five". For months our till was never over or under by even a penny.

Then one day the assistant manager, ten years younger than either of us, rang up one sale. The next day the store manager called Dick and me into the office and asked what happened, our till was short ten cents. I remembered that the assistant manager had rung up a sale, and the manager said "Oh, I understand now".

[Diamond_Dog]

170. Counting back change is a lost art! Or skill.

I learned how to do that in elementary school because I took the lunch money in the cafeteria. I don’t know why so many young people don’t know how to. Maybe because very few people pay with actual money anymore.

[Jeebo]

274. How to count back change was one of the first things I learned ...

... when I got my first job at a greasy spoon in high school in 1967. It's simple, and yet, I have noticed that it's a skill that has almost completely been forgotten. Kids who work in fast food restaurants don't know how to do it any more.

-- Ron

[mindfulNJ]

316. Oh! I was really good at this way back when!

Learned it working the drive thru window at Wendy's !

[nini]

77. I worked at microfilm company for my first job

Hospital records galore that of course we read lol

[Diamond_Dog]

219. Is microfilm still used for anything nowadays?

[nini]

229. According to google it is

Primarily banks. Wow. It is hearty stuff but in the digital age, it’s surprising to me.

[The Wandering Harper]

81. no one was faster than me at a cash register before scanners came along.

hated that thing. Took all the fun out of being a cashier

[Diamond_Dog]

144. I worked at a department store in the summer a few times between high school and college

I remember those huge old machines with all the buttons you had to push down really hard. I liked the cha- CHING noise they made!

Now we scan our own purchases at stores. No fun at all.

[sinkingfeeling]

82. 10 finger typing. Laptops ruined it as I now only use around 7 or 8 to type.

[Diamond_Dog]

220. I hear you, sinkingfeeling. It's the same with me and my IPad.

[pnwest]

84. 10-key by touch and run a perfect tape

Before Excel became the norm.

[Ilsa]

190. I'm on that list, too. nt

[TexasBushwhacker]

317. There are still employers that want that

I'm a bookkeeper with 20 years experience using different editions of QuickBooks and MS Excel. I still see job listings requiring "10 key by touch". All I can wonder is "Why?"

[electric_blue68]

370. Hmmm, I was close to 10 key by touch...I did it w my....

non-dominant right hand, while writing down results with my dominant left hand. 👍

[pnwest]

440. Dang! That's impressive

I can't begin to write with my non-dominant hand.

[keithbvadu2]

85. The vasectomy obsoleted one particular skill. I love those five kids who don't look like me, anyway.

[Diamond_Dog]

238. So you're saying you're totally obsolete now?

I think every human being has value!

[keithbvadu2]

253. OK! A wee bit of joke and

[Diamond_Dog]

259. Oh, you!

[LilElf70]

88. Strange reply.

I have been in Information Technology (IT) from 17-62. I've done a lot of jobs, from PC to mainframes (and many in between). I've been in technical and management positions. I've work in the Education sector, Healthcare sector, retail sector, and many others. I was burned out at 62, lost a job out of my control and could not find work. I eventually gave up, and figured I might as well retire. I figured no one wanted at old IT employee that was making good money. So I gave up for years. Then I stumbled across a job, locally (8 minute drive to work) for a small company to do some admin work (processing invoices) part time. Surely I could do that, even though I had never worked with Quick books. I now work 3 days a week(around 20 hours), and enjoy a 4 day weekend, every weekend. To make a long story short, I find I am a perfect match for my younger female boss. I had the IT knowledge to organize the company documentation and procedures. She had the business acumen. I've been doing this for months now and still enjoy coming to work, performing her required admin functions and then training her on how to use windows, apps, to showing her how IT can help her run a smoother business in less time. I get a personal rush from working again. I see growth when I'm there. I am 70.

I know, 70, (still got my shit together) kicking, and trying to be a part of society again? Being retired was great, but boring as hell after a while. It's still taking me time to readjust back.

All this time I had thought my skill set was useless and obsolete. I didn't think I'd ever find another job. That couldn't be further from the truth. It was like finding the fountain of youth again, as I was contributing to her business and society. Surprisingly this has been a lot of fun. The extra money is a bonus too. My kids will enjoy Christmas better this year. I can't take it with me. I need tires too.

Who'd a figured that a retired experienced IT employee (with obsolete skills) would find another job, with a good ending to the story. Certainly not me.

[Diamond_Dog]

221. Your story is quite compelling, LilElf70!

Just goes to show how life can take so many twists and turns. I think the vast majority of us human do feel happier when we’re productive members of society. Thank you for sharing your story.

[TomSlick]

89. In law school, I spent hours learning to use the Shepard's Citations,

am obtuse system to check for subsequent cases that had cited a case in which you were interested. I spent unknown hours "Shepardizing" cases.

It was, thankfully, made obsolete by computerized legal research. Gone and not lamented.

[Diamond_Dog]

236. Sounds like it ended up being a win for you, TomSlick.

[TomSlick]

320. Indeed.

Shepardizing cases used to be a real pain. Now, the computer research system does it automatically.

[Rigpa108]

90. Drafting

With graphite on vellum and ink on mylar. Now it's all digital.

[Diamond_Dog]

237. I remember ink on vellum. Those really took some skill!

[dwayneb]

420. Yep did lots of rapidograph ink on vellum

We had to lay out grids for finite element models on vellum. The digitize the points in order to create a model.

All that was long ago replaced by CAD and FEA software, haven't touched a drafting table for over 40 years.

[LSparkle]

91. I could line up typed text on IBM Selectric and lift it off

Using the correction key. At the law firm where I worked, the lawyers marveled that I could remove a word then squeeze in another word with perhaps one additional character in the same space. Saved retyping an entire page. No need now with computers/printers.

[struggle4progress]

95. I can use tens complement to subtract with a mechanical adding machine!

And I still remember how to dial a phone!

[Diamond_Dog]

261. Very impressive, struggle4progress!

How many younger folks can work a rotary phone? We had one here on the kitchen wall until 1985.

[JustAnotherGen]

105. Interesting thread

I have never had a job that didn't require the use of a computer, photoshop, excel, word or wordperfect, MS project.

I've worked in Agile a great deal but I'm now in a Windchill factory - - and its not as elegant.

Something I no longer keep? An excel cheat sheet. I just type in what I need to chatgpt and I grab my formulas that way.

I'm Gen X - I wonder how many on the thread were born prior to the mid 60's?

[LeftInTX]

117. PL/1 programming

[Diamond_Dog]

263. Not sure what that is, LeftIn TX but if it's computers, I am sorta dumb. It sounds impressive, though.

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

121. I don't have any job skills that aren't obsolete. (n/t)

[Diamond_Dog]

273. Haha thanks DJ Synikus Makismus

[BOSSHOG]

130. PAYING WITH CASH!

[Diamond_Dog]

278. You and me both, BOSSHOG!

My sons just roll their eyes ….

[BOSSHOG]

310. I hit the ATM and I'm off

My number one reason is reducing our exposure in the computer universe. And I can breeze through a checkout and not hold up a line and it reduces my bookkeeping time and it’s our money. We have one credit card, seldom used and I really trust the issuer.

[FakeNoose]

135. I know exactly what a paste-up artist is ... I did the same work for about 15 years

Originally in the early 70's I was trained as a typesetter on the brand-new "cold-type" typesetting machines. Those were the first computerized digital typesetters that came out before the desktop publishing era. Also I did some darkroom work including making and stripping negatives. When you work in a small offset printshop you learn to do a little bit of everything. (Although I never ran a printing press, I learned to to do just about everything else.) All of that has gone by the wayside now.

[brush]

171. I worked in a small printshop too back in the day as a paste-up artist. Also learned...

stripping using goldenrod paper to burn negs and then make the plates for the press with them. There was a very experienced old guy who taught me, and a journeyman printer took me under his wing and was very helpful.

Those were both union guys and made good money. I was just starting out of art school.

[FakeNoose]

185. Nowadays the art school students don't get any of that practical training

[brush]

195. I briefly taught graphic design at one of thos for-profit colleges when me and my wife...

relocated after selling our house in NY...to Las Vegas. Got good money and houses were much cheaper then in Vegas.

To show the students how reproduction work was done before computers,so they understand color separation, I went to a press shop and got one of their old job envelopes with all the film, negs, color septs and plates too.

They got a better idea of what was being done automatically now by computers.

I got out of there as soon as I could once I found out that place was taking. advantage of of many working students who were earnestly trying to increase their skill sets to bet better jobs but the school, as many of those places do, had accreditation problems and what the students were paying good money for maybe was not recognized in the real world.

I gave them real info as I cited above.

I soon got a decent job at UNLV as a staff artist.

[Diamond_Dog]

265. Good for you, brush.

It’s very important, I think, for students to understand how things worked back in the olden days of graphics and printing.

[Diamond_Dog]

279. We didn't have any training like that in art school, either

And I’m talkin’ 1970s. I think it would be have been a very valuable course for graphic design majors.

[electric_blue68]

374. See my post #368 we were lucky to get a great course in early 70's

[Diamond_Dog]

191. That was my story,too, brush. My first job out of art school (art major) at Kent State.

I learned stripping and became a journeyman after 4 years as an apprentice as well as illustrator and camera. Mine was also a union shop. After 4 years I was making the same money as my husband made as a school teacher and he had been teaching for 12 years. I made plates one time. It was a fun place to work.

[brush]

194. Those union journeymen make good money. Guess they're called journeywomen now too?

[Diamond_Dog]

240. No, we were called a "journeyman" even back in the 70s.

I still have my IPGCU union card. I was one of the two women in our entire shop to be a journeyman. I worked with about ten other strippers who were all men.

Telling people for the first time that I was a Journeyman Stripper always got some raised eyebrows, Lol

[brush]

243. Heehee. That would raise an eyebrow or two.

[Diamond_Dog]

262. Another story

The other lady who was a stripper at my shop had been there a long time and I was the newbie. One of the salesmen would come into our dept. occasionally to check on the progress of his job and the lady told me that this particular salesman started out there as a stripper but went into sales after a while. So, one day he came in and just stood there, beaming at us two females (our tables were next to each other) with an expression of admiration and shock. He told us we were really something special, because he never in his wildest dreams thought he’d ever see a WOMAN be able to correctly handle this job. In his mind it was a “man’s job.” He told us to keep up the good work, and left. We both burst out laughing after he left.

[brush]

269. Well now, at least he was pleased to see women doing the job. All the jobs I've had I've worked with and...

and alongside women. Had several women bosses too.

Thanks for sharing.

[Diamond_Dog]

275. I also had more than one of the old-timers tell me

that I was taking a job away from a man with a family to support. Like how was I supposed to pay for my own food, rent, car, etc.?

I’m glad you saw more women at your place and that it was a perfectly normal thing.

[electric_blue68]

375. Cool!

[electric_blue68]

369. Hmmm...golden rod paper thst sounds vaugely familliar. Kind of (duh) yellow orange?...

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 03:54 AM - Edit history (1)

And did you ever use the liquid equivalent of rubylith? I vaguely remember using a small a a red sort of transparent liquid.

[brush]

438. Yeah, it is, or was then at least, the yellow-orang paper that you taped down on a lightbox over the neg...

of a pasted-up page. You could see thru the golden rod the clear type and images on the black neg to cut out the golden rod paper around the images and type. You made sure the golden rod and neg are attached in the same position together and that is then attached to a light-sensitive zinc plate in a darkened room, that is then used to burn the image on the plate that then goes on a press for running the job.

It sounds time consuming but it went quick once you familiar with the process.

[electric_blue68]

439. Ah, I didn't use on a plate...but I used it for something once or twice

I made my own light table..
11" x 11" wood ________ whatever you called them to stretch a canvas over them. Added plexiglass glass taped on with translucent paper on the backside. A tensor lamp below in a deskdraw. Set it on top.

Did my my animation on index cards with it! But it did come in handy for some professional work later.

[Diamond_Dog]

239. Yes, FakeNoose! A little bit of everything.

Paste-Up Artists Unite!

[electric_blue68]

368. I took a class at Art College to learn how a printing house worked...

We walked about 1/2 mile+ in good weather over to an area where a fair amount of printing presses were.

It was a high medium to low high end printer. We saw some 2 color jobs they did for the Metropol Myseum of Art.
Our teacher was the part, or total owner of the company. He was a great teacher!

We saw stripping, the plates, the 4 color process with the ?dot matrixes and more. We got to prepare art, maybe some added text for a 2 color print ourselves for homework that he printed out. We had prints of each color, then the combined one.

The "wildest" thing he taught us (back then ? '71, or '72) was that Kodakchrome was not a color film??!!!
How could that be?!

Well, it turned out it was actually a B&W dye transfer film!
Each layer registered one of the 4 process colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, or black. The corresponding layer was dipped in that color's dye, and the whole 4 layers sandwiched back together for a full color slide.
I don't exactly how that was done - it's not a thick layer of plastic, and yet it had to be separated so each layer got it's color dye, but there you go.

[FakeNoose]

382. Your teacher did a nice job, you received a great background in offset printing

Of course, everything is digital now, so all the stuff we learned about color separations etc. is pretty much obsolete.

[electric_blue68]

429. It was a fabulous class! Yeah, obsolete now...Another cool thing he taught us...

was that if the cyan, magenta, and yellow were perfect - but they could never be just so for some reason(s); they wouldn't have even needed black. A layer of all three at over each other would have produced a perfect black color. Possible something about unavoidable adulteration in each ink color that would throw a perfect color "off".

And we also the the ubiquitous paperback at the time for 4 color printing process.
I can almost see the cover! 😄👍

[wryter2000]

136. Typewriters

Don’t miss them

[LeftInTX]

184. They make good weapons!

I hated typing with a passion. Our teacher was brutal. I spent more hours on typing homework than any other class. Out teacher did not allow us to use correct tape

[wryter2000]

251. Yikes

Mine wasn’t like that. I remember when the correcting Selectric was invented. What a joy it was.

[electric_blue68]

371. Yuck! We in a specialized art & music HS were marched off one semester...

downtown (public transit) to another HS to take typing. Uggghhh! 😄

[Jeebo]

137. I was a pasteup person for a newspaper.

For 15 years, and we still did a little pasteup at that newspaper for some years after that, but gradually less and less. When I started working for that newspaper (I worked there for 45 years), I just missed the Linotype era. The people who were working there when I started all could read upside-down and backward, and they all had scars on their arms where they had been squirted with hot lead. But that newspaper had gone to cold type just a year before I started working there, so I barely missed that era. That was in 1971. There was one man working there who still used Linotype machines. I never even met him, but just walked by the area where he worked a few times. He did printing jobs there for a while on Linotype machines after the rest of the people at the newspaper had made the move to cold type. Now, it's amazing what you can do with a laptop computer and a couple of good programs like Quark XPress and Adobe Photoshop. Things we couldn't have dreamed of then.

-- Ron

[Diamond_Dog]

264. Reading upside down and backwards, now there's a skill not too many people have!

[LogDog75]

142. Keypunch operator

I job in the AF was medical materiel (medical supply for you civilians) and for the first 10 years (mid-70s to mid-80s) we used 80-column IBM keypunch cards to update our records. We use a keypunch machine and we could "program" a card that would allow us to "gang-punch" similar transactions; that is, a pre-programmed card would be placed on cylinder and the machine would know which card column to stop on for use to enter information. Our system required us learn about 20 transaction code and what information would go into each column. I figured out early to make a duplicate of each transaction code to use as a reference. In a week, our staff, about 10 people, would keypunch between 2,000 and 3,000 cards. We'd put them in an empty box they came in, which would hold 2,000 cards, and take them to the base processing computer center on Friday where they'd process them over the weekend because our computer program took the longest of any program on base. By the mid-80s, we went to having our own real-time computer system and printing capabilities which eliminated our needs for keypunching.

After 40 years, I still remember many of the transaction codes as well as where on the keypunch card it went. And yes, I was good and fast at keypunching.

[Diamond_Dog]

296. Sounds like you were both fast and accurate, LogDog75. That's a real skill there!

[jmowreader]

143. After having read the newspaper I work for the last fourteen years...

...it seems to me that "spelling" and "punctuation" are now obsolete job skills.

An example: I was inspecting an ad one fine afternoon and there were four misspelled words in it. So I print the ad off, circle the words that needed changed, and took the print to the ad designer.

"My spelling checker says these are all spelled right."
"Yes...but they're the wrong words!"

I still want a law passed that says the word "pubic" cannot be included in or added to a spelling checker dictionary. WAY too many people leave the L out of "public" and the results are embarrassing. Normally when I'm faced with a misspelled word I call the newsroom to ask if they're okay with me fixing it, but in this case I just insert the L and call it good.

[happybird]

146. Counting back change properly

It drives me crazy how cashiers don’t do it now.
Get off my lawn and all that, I guess.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

151. I used to do Seatch Engine Optimization I'm sure that will be taken over by AI.

My second career social work and counseling by the time that gets taken over by AI I will be dead and gone. Although I have run into many people in the field of psychiatry who would be best replaced by a computer. It’s either you’ve got it, or you don’t - not many people are good at counseling.

[brush]

173. How did you do Seatch Engine Optimization? After google came in, it change web design amatuers...

who no longer could get their pages at the top.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

188. I had web position gold and then hired a webmaster who had a bunch of linking sites.

We were in the top 5 or 6 I real estate in google - one of the toughest search terms to be at the top of. The rest of my clients were golf courses - which is not as tough. You have to be a big “nerd” to do SEO. You have to be super analytical and like to do things that would make most people tear their hair out!

[Diamond_Dog]

223. You definitely need empathy and problem solving skills to be a good counselor, Kerry-is-my-prez.

I can’t imagine being counseled by a machine! Good on ya.

[Gore1FL]

157. TCAM and VTAM

These haven't come up much in my career in the last 25 years.

Also, I kicked ass in memory Includes and Excludes in DOS config.sys .

[Diamond_Dog]

276. Sounds very technical, Gore1FL. Good job!

[RainCaster]

159. Mechanical Draftsman

Mechanical pencils, eraser dust, velum paper. I had the neatest block lettering for decades afterwards.

[brush]

175. I was once a designer on a newpaper art staff that had designers, cartographers, air brush artists...

and illustrators. One of the illustrators had a beautiful cross-hatching technique using a very fine, triple-x Rapidograph pen.

You probably know Rapidograph was the name for a brand of technical drawing pens. I had some, still do in my garage somewhere but I could never get the triple-x one to flow smoothly and continuously like my old colleague did.

[Diamond_Dog]

266. Oh my yes I had a whole set of Rapidograph pens.

Darn things would clog up all the time. But they were a requirement for the job!

[brush]

268. DD it seems we had very similar careers. It's a pleasure conversing with you on these experiences.

[Diamond_Dog]

271. I feel the same way, brush!

I had almost forgotten about proportion wheels and rapidographs. It’s nice to chat with someone who remembers all those things. We did have similar careers and I’m glad you enjoyed the job as much as I did!

[dwayneb]

422. Ruined quite a few shirts with those Rapidograph pens lol

[electric_blue68]

434. I was lucky. Most of the time mine didn't clog up often but...

oh! when I had to clean out the 4 x 0 one - the thinnest I owned; putting that plasic rod that held the sooo thin wire back inside the tube nib?!

An exercise in steady hands, and eye coordination! Yeah, I ruined one at least once.

[electric_blue68]

419. Rapidiographs! Loved them! It was my dad's neighbor who introduced them to him, then me. I never did ask what he did...

that he'd have them!

I guess I got my first one as a gift sometime in HS. Since I was in an Art & Music HS I used them there, and on my own. Eventually I had a whole slew of them over the years! Certainly useful for mechanicals!

Even if they were frustrating on occasion, I really glad I was introduced to them.

[Diamond_Dog]

277. My Dad did all that too when he was an engineer

It’s very precise work and I bet your lettering was beautiful. It’s a talent, for sure.

[Aristus]

162. I was a bookstore savant.

I worked in a bookstore (remember those?) for a couple of years after I got out of the Army. I was good at it.

If you think that’s not something that is important to be good at, I can’t tell you how many times I had gone into a bookstore prior to that, and had to deal with staff who didn’t know the first thing about books, literature, authors, or reading. They were just drones collecting a paycheck.

Well, when I worked in a bookstore, I knew where every book in the store was, and could take you right to it. When we got new shipments of books, the manager would toss a promotional copy of a pending publication to me, and ask me to read it and give him my impressions.

I could find a book for a customer, and recommend three or four other books they might like.

I was a bookstore god…

It’s not a case of the bookstore leaving me; I left the bookstore, because you can’t live on minimum wage and no benefits. Their loss.

[Diamond_Dog]

244. I certainly would have patronized any bookstore where you worked, Aristus.

Sadly, bookstores have become fewer and farther between. And I guess I’m part of the problem, since I read books on my tablet more and more.

An interesting aside, I met my husband in a bookstore! Waldenbooks.

[Aristus]

250. Great place to meet the love of your life!

I worked for B. Dalton’s.

It was a weird kind of employment hell in that I loved the work, but every pay period was a desperate scramble to earn enough for rent and food. There was never any money left over for anything else.

[Lulu KC]

397. One of the most fun jobs I've ever had

"Bookseller." I wear it with pride.

[maveric]

177. I was a sheet metal layout-man for years. Laying out patterns for ship ventilation duct.

Many transition pieces and such.
Now you just punch in coordinates and a computer will give you a pattern.
I had to learn certain trig functions to make the patterns.
Those days are long gone.

[Diamond_Dog]

272. Computers have made us all more efficient but maybe they make things too easy!

[OldBaldy1701E]

179. Oh, let's see.

Acting, writing, directing, singing, musician, audio/video production (before the digital age)... pretty much everything I am good at has now been either replaced or does not exist anymore. Any thing that is left is now beyond my abilities due to age or mileage.

Truly a waste. Not what I envisioned fifty-odd years ago, that's for sure.

[Diamond_Dog]

280. But the world still needs actors, writers, singers, musicians, etc.

So you’re not totally obsolete, OldBaldy1701E!

[OldBaldy1701E]

314. The definitions have changed.

They don't want 'actors', they want 'reality stars' and 'social media influencers'. They don't want a new script or story, they want to remake everything that is ten years or older. As far as music, I am too old to make it in today's music scene. And, since I would like to make a living, and since all of my skills and talents are not getting me anywhere, they are either outdated or so bad as to not be worth anything. (Which would mean many people have lied to me over the years.)

Either way, obsolescence seems to be my middle name these days.

[Diamond_Dog]

318. Well, we value your insights and stories here at DU

So that counts for something!

[elleng]

181. HOPE NOT! I'm a LAWYER. I do remember how to ARGUE!

(and write.) Retired now, so can 'relax,' a bit.

[Diamond_Dog]

281. Good legal arguments are never obsolete! I'm very impressed with your career, elleng

My Dad was a patent attorney and my sis a Paralegal.

[elleng]

287. Patents IMPORTANT, and 'unusual' specialty.

BUNCH of attorneys in my family, Dad, Uncles, Cousin, Me, brother and husband! Some fun arguments!

[Diamond_Dog]

290. I'll bet you had some interesting holidays around the dinner table!

Did you all go to the same law school?

[elleng]

294. We were spread out, geographically, and age-wise, so 'limited' holidays together,

and same with law schools. Dad and uncles in NY LONG time ago.

[Diamond_Dog]

295. TY elleng. Your family all must be very smart!

[NoMoreRepugs]

182. Really enjoyed so many of the responses.

Manual accounting on ledger sheets for me.

[duncang]

183. How to work on selsyn transmitter and receivers

I’m sure there’s some around still. Most likely ships. It’s not quite a motor but is a motor. Trying to figure out how to describe without going into the weeds. You know the helm speed control you see on ships where they signal the engine room to increase decrease speed. I.E. full stop, half speed, full speed, etc. Aka engine order telegraph. Most ships moved to electronics but probably a lot of older ships still have them. They can be used on land also for equipment rotation and rise indication. I’ve worked on both.

[greatauntoftriplets]

189. Has AI made editing obsolete?

I did a lot of that back into the day. During my newspaper days, I also wrote feature copy and spent parts of two days every week in the composing room supervising the printers who set the hot type into the page. It was there that I developed the unique skill of sometimes reading type that was already in the page, which meant it was backwards and upside down.

[Permanut]

192. Had a paper route when I was 13..

I could throw a newspaper on your porch from the street without stopping.

[Abolishinist]

198. Same here!

Probably 14 or so at the time. There was a morning and evening edition, had to wake up every morning around 4:30am and walk down to the street corner where the papers were delivered. Not sure, but I think around 150 customers on my route. And then every Friday evening I stopped by each customer's house to collect. They had a card, and when they paid me I punched it. On Saturday I went over to the 'managers' car and paid him for the weeks deliveries. The difference was my 'profit' for the week.

To think this was nothing out of the ordinary for a kid to do in the 60's. My parents had no reason to think there was anything unsafe about this, because there wasn't. Times have certainly changed.

[Diamond_Dog]

282. Neat story and, yes, how times have changed. We had a 'paperboy' when I was young, too.

[Dr. Shepper]

227. Loved hitting the porch just right!

[Permanut]

270. And ya rolled 'em too, right?

Only broke one window; Dad fixed it for me.

[vsrazdem]

193. Medical transcriptionist/Editor

Used to make a decent living 20 years ago. Now just lost 2 jobs, one to overseas and the other to reduction in force. Ai and cheap labor in India have tanked this career. Big companies bought up all the smaller ones and send everything overseas to make more profit.

[Diamond_Dog]

283. That's sad, vsrazdem.

I knew someone who did medical transcribing. You had to know how to correctly spell lots of long scientific terms.

[dlk]

196. I operated a telex when I was in school

Absolutely no one remembers the telex machine. It was that long ago.

[Diamond_Dog]

284. I'm afraid I don't remember what a Telex machine is either, although I've heard of them.

[dlk]

391. Here you go

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex

[Diamond_Dog]

392. So, kind of like sending a text! Thanks!

[Srkdqltr]

289. I ran one in an office. Just like text, somewhat.

[Zambero]

199. Xerox repair and maintenance

Dress code was suit and tie.

[Diamond_Dog]

285. I'll bet you had a big dry cleaning bill, Zambezi!

[samplegirl]

200. Transcription

[Diamond_Dog]

286. Was it medical transcription, samplegirl?

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

204. I started my career in banking and finance, keeping track of balances using a calculator, spreadsheet paper and a pen

it seems so ridiculous now.

[Diamond_Dog]

297. I remember when calculators first came out, remember how expensive they were?

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

311. first they were very expensive and kinda big. then they got small and banks were giving them away free

eventually, I had a zillion little calculators, they were so cheap.

i think Japan was the innovator on making small electronics.

[DFW]

207. No, but I'm beginning to wish I did.

I landed my job at age 23 because I possessed a special set of skills. That was in 1975. Now, at age 72, I’d like to start taking it easier, but I can’t find a replacement. The job security was nice, but so far, neither man nor machine has stepped in to say, “Take it easy, I got this.”

[Diamond_Dog]

291. Well, it's great to be in demand, DFW!

[DFW]

306. After ten years, it was great

After almost 50 years, it’s very demanding!

[Shermann]

208. UI development with PowerBuilder

This was heavily used by banks in the 1990s for database applications and is still around. I still have it on my resume, but it is mostly used today only to support those existing legacy apps.

I'm not sure why I even list it, I've totally forgotten how to use it.

[Diamond_Dog]

298. That would go totally over my head, Sherman. Good going 👍

[John Shaft]

210. Reasoning

[Diamond_Dog]

301. Sadly there a huge lack of that around today. You should hire yourself out, John Shaft.

[TexLaProgressive]

213. A couple come to mind

Last edited Sun Nov 24, 2024, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

1. Automotive repair - no longer can I troubleshoot engine issues with sight, sound and smell. It takes electronic test equipment these days.

2. Building and repairing electronic circuitry. These days the components are so small that I doubt any human can instal or replace them.

Number 2 was my job - went from being able to replace faulty components to basically “black boxing.” We we replace whole units that were sent to a depot for repair. None of my younger co-workers knew how to operate an oscilloscope, frequency generator or digital analyzer.

[Diamond_Dog]

302. Well done, TexLaProgressive!

Mr. Diamond laments every day how so many cars, appliances, electronics are made unrepairable on purpose.

[electric_blue68]

376. One of my uncles had an oscilloscope in his basement. I was fascinated by it!

We're talking about 58 yr old memory!

[mindfulNJ]

216. Ha! I went to school

for graphic arts and learned those same skills. I never worked in the field because it was going the way of the dinosaur even before I graduated. I became a stock photographer and now that is also going away due to AI taking over. Looking for a new almost obsolete career…any suggestions?😆

[Diamond_Dog]

303. I'm afraid I can't answer that question, mimdfulNJ!

[mindfulNJ]

315. Don't worry

so far I've been pretty good at picking them myself!

[Kid Berwyn]

222. Journalism

There is only one business mentioned by name is the Constitution: the Press. The Founders’ idea was publishers, editors and writers would tell the truth to advance democracy.

One now-forgotten aim was to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That, too, changed.

[Diamond_Dog]

386. Very true, Kid Berwyn.

[kskiska]

225. Same as you. Paste-ups & mechanicals

Then the company I worked for got a typesetting machine and I became proficient at that. Back then one needed to be able to spell and properly puncturate. Somehow that does't seem important anymore.

[Dr. Shepper]

226. For my PhD studies

I would extract RNA using a manual kit. Now it’s all automated.

[Jrose]

231. Gregg Stenography transcription after taking direct dictation...

and typing the 'translation' on an 'electric typewriter'. If there had to be major changes or there were errors, secretaries such as myself had to retype the entire document. When desktop PCs were finally introduced, it was a huge blessing!

Also, the Telex machine... which used a tape onto which the message was punched manually and then sent.

[GreatAuntK]

379. Gregg Shorthand

I could transcribe a 2 hour + meeting word for word. Transcribing tape machines (with a foot pedal) made shorthand less important, but I still used it frequently. When department head asked me to translate sketchy audio from her cell phone, I suggested she get an app to type audio recordings. She did not understand the need for the foot pedal, but complied.

I was really good with Goldmine database management for a dozen years. It was such a relief to be laid off. In spite of classes, intensive study, I could never master (and didn't really want to) Salesforce admin. beyond data entry.

[Mossfern]

234. That was my first thought!

I worked as the assistant to the VP of an advertising agency overseeing the Art Department. I didn't do the paste ups myself, but I had to make sure that the repro proofs were correct, even after the Traffic Manager reviewed them. I also interviewed and reviewed portfolios of illustrators....in person. There were no such things as computers then. I also had oversight of the artists in the Bull Pen.

I was completing my MFA back then, but it was in painting, not graphic art.
I must say that series "Mad Men" was absolutely true! It was a wild time back then.

[moniss]

242. I am good at customer service on the phone

and as we all know that seems to be more or less obsolete anymore.

[Diamond_Dog]

385. moniss, you are so correct. Customer service is a lost art! Good for you!

[moniss]

394. I'm so old I know a time

when waitresses were trained to approach a table and say, "Hello, thank you for dining with us. My name is ...... and I'll be your waitress. Can I bring you anything while you look over the menu?"

Now we mostly get "Hi, are you guys ready to order or do you need more time?"

[neeksgeek]

247. Film Handling and Processing

Chemical photography! I can still bulk-load 35mm film, load large-format sheet film (in total darkness), and process nearly any kind of photographic film. It’s been thirty years, but I bet I could still run a process camera while half asleep.

[Diamond_Dog]

300. Some skills really stay with you! Thanks neeksgeek!

[Turbineguy]

256. Pour and fit bearings.

On the other hand, I don't have a skill that will be greatly needed.

Crematorium operator.

[Diamond_Dog]

305. Those are two widely differing professions, Turbineguy.

[niyad]

288. Shorthand. mimeograph machines. Non-computerized cash registers.

Non-computerized adding machines. Switchboard operator. Manual bookkeeping. Newspaper layout. Actually writing newspaper articles (long before AI, chatwhatever, etc.). Movie theater projectionist. Actual ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide without a calculator! Just to name a few!

[Diamond_Dog]

307. Those are all disciplines that take brains and patience, niyad! Good for you.

[valleyrogue]

304. Data entry.

The first 17 years of my very long working career I worked for private businesses doing data entry, and I was very good at it. I switched occupations and went back to school knowing that skill would eventually be obsolete. I started out on IBM 129 keypunch cards. Talk about aggravation. Eventually that went out. The rest did later on.

[Diamond_Dog]

308. Yes, technology changes so fast. Good for you seeing the writing on the wall and pursuing another field.

[The Madcap]

309. FORTRAN programming

Both on punch cards and on screens. Of course, even my limited Visual Basic exposure means nothing now.

Reading paper blueprints. Hand calculations including handwritten documentation.

Of course, if the latter part had not changed when it did, I'd probably be in the asylum by now, as it was really tedious.

[electric_blue68]

319. Hey Diamond Dog. I also did paste ups & mechanicals the old...

fashioned way for Dance Magazine, Schlolastic Magazines, a small Ad Co (but it was on Madison Ave 😄 ), and a few other places. Also some graphic design, and illustration.

I did some at home for small clients, too. Had on a long table; a portable, tilting drawing board frame, and drawing board. My trusty metal T-Sqaure, triangles, rapidiographs, non-reproducible photoblue pencil, and more. 😄👍
While sometimes frustrating, it could be interesting, and creative fun - esp the graphics, and illustrationsc!

When I was at Scholastic a few yrs in (2 wks a month or so) Computer Graphics began to arrive.

Luckily, I didn't do much type specing. It scared 😱 me! 😄

Otoh, at the ad agency, wow, did I have to do a lot of Letrasetting! Luckily I was very skilled at it. I think I quit bc I had to use so much more rubber cement than the other places where we used waxing machines for the type gallies. Thst much began to bother me. They might eventually have thought to fire me, bc occasionally I was a little slower than I should have been.

[Diamond_Dog]

325. It looks like there are several of us graphic arts professionals here, electric _blue!

I agree with what you said, it could be fun and it could be frustrating.

I also freelanced for a small ad agency.

We had a saying that when the keys came in to our shop all crooked and falling apart or in 1000 pieces they were “bushel basket jobs” and if all crooked, a “kitchen table job.”

We used rubber cement and then eventually spray mount. Both messy in their own way.

[electric_blue68]

326. Yay, for us! But what are these "keys" you're refering to. Never heard the term used in your context.

[Diamond_Dog]

328. Keylines. Mechanicals. Paste ups. All the same thing!

[electric_blue68]

335. Ohhhh.. "keylines"...maaaaybe an echo of a memory for that term vs the others! Ty

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2024, 08:45 PM - Edit history (1)

[Hotler]

322. Master Baiter at lake Ganby, Granby, Colorado during the summers.

help tourist bait their hooks.

[Diamond_Dog]

324. Ha ha ha

My hubby who loves to fish says the same thing about baiting hooks.

[Freethinker65]

329. Ethics

[Emrys]

330. I was trained to copy-edit and proofread on hard copy

Each entailed knowing sets of similar but different standard marks that the typesetter and proofreader or copy-editor could interpret (the hope was correctly) when the text was first typeset, then when it was checked after initial typesetting.

We didn't usually work on galley proofs (where the text has been typeset but hasn't yet been divided into pages) as by the time I started publishers had found that stage too time-consuming and expensive, so the hope was that there wouldn't be major errors, deletions or additions at proof stage that would radically alter the pagination.

The publisher that trained me had us proofread every book we'd copy-edited, and imposed a strict limit on the number of changes that could be made at proof stage because in those pre-computerization days they could be expensive. Typesetter's errors were OK as long as you picked up on them to be corrected while proofreading as the publisher didn't pay for them, but copy-editor's errors were charged to the publisher, and there was a restricted budget for those. That was a sobering and sometimes brutal apprenticeship, as copy-editors starting out inevitably make more errors than they do once more experienced, so if you ran out of budget, you had the agonizing decision of which errors to allow through as being less glaring or crucial. I always say that people in my line of work need a healthy level of OCD, so that could be painful. The discipline it taught me stood me well for the rest of what's passed for my career.

Proofreading usually entailed double-reading the typeset text against the typescript copy from the author that had been marked up by the copy-editor. I did work on a couple of jobs where the original text was literally manuscript - handwritten - which made reading and mark-up for copy-editing a bit of a chore.

At the final stage on heavily illustrated books, one task was to balance the page lengths to give an aesthetically pleasing result and avoid widows (where the last line of a paragraph is stranded at the beginning of the text on the next page or column), and orphans (where the first line of a paragraph is stranded at the end of the text on the previous page or column). One way to do this was to introduce hyphenation at the end of lines earlier in the text, then knock back enough words to the previous lines to overcome them. If that wasn't an option or wouldn't work, you'd have to hunt for words that could be deleted (or added) to improve the text flow.

I don't know whether trainees in my field even learn to mark up on hard copy nowadays. I think having been through that training made me a better copy-editor now it's all done on computer. I couldn't wait to move to editing onscreen, and persuaded the main publisher I worked for to trial it on a couple of books. The move met with a surprising amount of resistance from the board, I suspect because many of them were of the generation that had secretaries and typists and no idea what to do with a PC. Eventually, of course, every publisher modernized.

We used to have to mail vast reams of paper copy across the country, mark it up, photocopy it all in case it got lost in the mail, then post it back to the publisher and hope it got there intact and on time. Sometimes we'd have to go through the same process with the authors as well before sending the typescript back to the publisher. Then we'd mail the publisher an invoice, and if we were lucky, eventually they'd mail us a cheque which we'd have to lodge at our bank and wait for it to clear. Now all those stages are done via electronic means, and words often don't hit paper at all until the book's printed.

[Diamond_Dog]

432. Thank you for that detailed description, Emrys

Many people have no idea how much work it takes to put together a book or any publication, really.

[MurrayDelph]

341. Shell script programming

in Korn (Digital Unix), bash (Linux), and DCL (OpenVMS).

For years taught for a Digital Equipment Corporation (and it's training spinoff Global Knowledge), before going to work for a company formed by ex-Deccies, so I got to keep using them, eventually going to a horrible company that was Sun Unix and Red Hat Linux on HP boxes.

Happily to be out of the rat race, but if there was a market for DCL scripting I'd gladly go back.

[gay texan]

352. I can fix a television.

Long gone skill

[Meowmee]

356. One skill that has already declined before ai and which now

may become extinct as a requirement is drawing/ painting etc. since ai can do that for you now.

[electric_blue68]

378. Idk, i think I disagree. While it may be a smaller market (so, yeah, more competition) i believe there'll always be a...

market for original drawings, and paintings.

[Meowmee]

381. I hope so

but some are saying it is ok for art students to use ai, which I disagree with. So less people are even going to be trained in schools anyway if that attitude takes over. I see it as a decline in a lot of ways.

[electric_blue68]

402. Letting students ai? I don't think that's a good idea either.

Between the fact the source images were stolen; it's makes the students more like 🤔 Art Directors, than artists!

[Meowmee]

412. Yep

Some can’t draw to save their lives. But they are going to be allowed to “create” art which is plagiarized or created with AI- it’s ridiculous, they’re never gonna even try to learn to draw, etc..

[electric_blue68]

415. Some "artists"! 🙄

[albert992]

377. VHS tapes

I used to be really into VHS tapes and setting up VCRs—things like programming timers, setting up the correct channels, and making sure the tracking was just right. Now, it's all streaming, and the idea of fast-forwarding through a tape just feels... ancient. But I guess that's how it goes, right?

[Diamond_Dog]

387. And just when you've finally mastered a new technology

The industry comes out with something completely different different!

[BigmanPigman]

399. I hate DVD

VHS tapes are way better for me since I like to save things I've taped and I can share or give them away to Friends, family, etc. I even had an RCA VCR that fast forwarded through commercials. They stopped making those since the companies who advertise on TV commercials were losing money.

Same goes for cassette tapes vs dvds.

[doc03]

380. I am retired now but I showed up for work

each day.

[Diamond_Dog]

388. That's always an impressive skill, doc03. Or a lost art.

[Ursus Rex]

384. Graphics work is the first thing I thought of, too.

I started when I was like 14 on the high school yearbook and managed the transition to Quark et al before I moved to web design and development. I used to laugh, listening to the younger designers talk about "sliding that over a few picas" when doing layouts in Quark.

[Diamond_Dog]

426. I was on the high school yearbook staff too

Back when computers didn’t exist.

[shanti]

401. Yup

Late 70's, I worked for a pension services company, in the file department, microfilming records received. We had to know how to change the microfilm etc. under a black cover, doing it blind. (AND we all had to wear "career apparel", i.e. polyester suits, even though we never saw the public as it was swing shift.)

[Grammy23]

403. Typing on a manual (or electric) typewriter --

While making carbon copies. No pressure. LOL. 😩

[Rebl2]

404. I would

think a telephone operator would be obsolete. I applied looong time ago, but they would not hire me because of a disability. They could do that back then.

[Emile]

406. Truck driver.

[viva la]

408. I had to memorize all sorts of word-processing codes-

Like indenting and margins and underlining for an old Unix word processor. Then about a year later came Word and WordPerfect, and all those codes are still residing in my head taking up valuable space.

However, I still use the old WordStar keyboard commands-- Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, and so on.


Also I am a really good speller, and what use is that now?

And I can count change backwards the old way.

[Bo Zarts]

409. Flying first generation jet aircraft ..

Boeing 737-200s, Boeing 727s, DC-9s, MD-80s, Lockheed JetStars, Learjet 25s .. etc.

[Diamond_Dog]

427. Skill, nerves of steel, and quick to learn,

A career most people can only dream of.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

410. Cut and turn brake rotors and drums

Basically not needed at this point since the vast majority of brake rotors and drums are so thin that they cannot be machined down anymore. Also they are relatively cheap so it wouldn't be worth it most times even if there was enough metal.

[electric_blue68]

418. Hmmm...bc they're so thin do they break more often? Or is the metal stronger somehow?

I don't own a car, never learned to drive.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

428. Materials are better

Brake pads and rotors seem to last longer nowadays. But the main reason they are thinner is for weight savings. Every bit of weight you can shave off helps with fuel economy, especially if it's rotating mass that gets lighter.

[electric_blue68]

430. Ty got it

[cloudbase]

413. Running the powerplant on a steamship.

Most everything today is diesel, diesel-electric, gas turbine, or gas turbine-electric.

[Diamond_Dog]

433. Were you in the military, cloudbase?

[cloudbase]

436. Yes, but made my career as a civilian mariner in the merchant marine.

[Vinca]

437. More than one. Does anyone use Gregg Shorthand anymore? I was also, briefly, a telephone operator back

when cavemen used dial phones. I wasn't very good at it. My claim to fame was accidently disconnecting Lady Bird Johnson.