In old movies and comics and such, I frequently see accountants jotting notes down in a ledger with a stack of money and weird, green visor that is see-through. Poker dealers, too. As an accounting student, the utility of said headwear has never been discussed, but perhaps I don’t need to study that part until I’m ready to take my CPAs.
What’s it do?
You won’t find any references to these on the CPA exam.
Interesting. In the early days I wonder what the green part was made from, glass?
I would guess that for whatever truth is in the stereotype, it was because they had to work under bright lights to see their work, and the visor cut the glare across their eyes. But otherwise, it’s just a visual trope like prisoner’s stripes, a doctor’s head mirror, a bartender’s sleeve garters, etc. Things that may have been a real part of the uniform/job at one time but have long since gone away in the real world.
All the same, I’d take one to the CPA exams. Might be secretly required to pass as a “real” CPA… and it will give the proctors and other victims a laugh.
You need to weararm gartersto complete the outfit.
In the bleak days of 1983, as England languished in the doldrums of a ruinous monetarist policy, the good and loyal men of the Permanent Assurance Company - a once-proud family firm recently fallen an hard times - strained under the yoke of their oppressive new corporate management … and so, the Crimson Permanent Assurance was launched upon the high seas of international finance!
Dodgy accountants used to work in the dark, with just a single old-fashioned brass lamp, and these things shaded their eyes so they could concentrate on the wild schemes their employers demanded.
Now it’s all done with computers.
The Wikipedia link in the post before yours says celluloid was most common. One of the images there has a caption saying that green glass was used for that particular one.
I’d be surprised if glass was common. It seems like it would be awfully heavy.
I thought this was going to be about those traditional brass desk lamps with green shades, like this one. I’ve never seen an accountant wearing a green visor on their head. Tennis players, yes.
My grandpa used to wear those green visors all the time, sort of a uniform for him. He bought them by the box, and long after he died, one hung in his former office as a reminder of who was boss. He wasn’t an accountant, he was an inventor of motor winding machines, but I have photos of him in the back yard wearing a green visor, playing with his grandson.
I suppose in those pre-fluorescent lighting days, glarey, non-frosted bare bulbs in a machine shop were the norm, and if your eyes are sensitive, visors would help avoid glare from a direct sun outdoors, too.
I have modern track lighting over my computer desk at home and I’ve always been sensitive to glare, too, so I wear a baseball cap whenever the lights are on and I’m sitting at the computer. I’ve tried the green visor idea, but it just didn’t work as well for me as a cap. Maybe grandpa never tried a baseball cap.
They had some kind of plastic at least by the 1940’s, maybe earlier. Could be it was not as durable material as later, which would explain grandpa buying them by the box. Maybe they wore out fast.
Just like, I have this full-size slide rule that I keep as a “collector’s item”. When I was taking a Statistic class a few years ago, I brought it with me on exam days and set it out on the desk in front of me during the tests.
My late father had one. He loved to play cards, but with only one eye and not a great deal of sight in the other, he was easily dazzled by overhead lights. A green plastic vizor went well with the black eye patch and the monocle.
According to Wikipedia, its apparently the same thing. Green helped protect the eyes from early lights.
