First I heard of them, though I was apparently right in the time period. We used three-ring binders.
We are old and we are reminiscing.
Shall auld technology be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Working at a subway and dealing with the general public for dirt pay sucks.
I wouldnt want. It’s a miracle corporate America can convince anyone to work these thankless, soul sucking jobs. You’ll probably receive more just filing for welfare all other assorted benefits.
In my school days, the binder/folder/paper holder of choice was the Trapper Keeper. I think that technically, the Keeper was a three-ring binder and the Trappers were the inserts into it that the papers went into, but we all used “Trapper Keeper” as the name for the whole assembly.
And even though most students any more don’t have physical textbooks any more, I have seen sheets of textbook covers in students’ hands. They’re thicker and stiffer than grocery bags, and are printed with the names of various local businesses. I imagine that at some point, someone at the school got a huge pile of them for free, and has been trying to find uses for them ever since.
Trapper Keepers were cool!
Mine was Van Gogh, Starry night print.
I thought I was the coolest.
Careful there. I’ll bet the majority of folks here put themselves through school (and beyond) in jobs like that. No indignity, no shame, just actual work.
Myself included. I’m speaking from personal experience. I’ve worked at a subway and half a dozen other similar places. They pay peanuts, virtually no benefits, and dealing with the general public was not fun.
That was over 20 years ago and wages have not kept pace with inflation.
At the exact moment i was reading that, a BBC news reader said “.. this report
from Kevin Peachey”. Spooky.
Sure, why not have hard-working taxpayers pay you to do nothing instead of work for a living.
These sort of jobs aren’t there to enrich the soul. They are there to provide extra money and a bit of work experience for students and people with no other job skills.
Honestly, young people seem very stupid, clumsy, and awkward to me these days. Maybe that’s always been true of young people. But I think it’s more pronounced over the past couple of decades as so much of their interactions are online. I don’t know if the subway guy was “stupid”, but sounded like he lacked the manual dexterity to open a bag.
Do you all not still use box-bottom paper bags at the supermarket? My town has outlawed plastic bags, and all the stores went back to using those. I have a stack of them in my trunk that i reuse when i shop, because they usually hold up for several grocery trips.
It’s been years since I’ve seen a box-bottom grocery bag anywhere except at Trader Joes. And theirs are stouter and have handles. Similar but smaller paper bags are fairly common at restaurants or take-out places for bringing food home.
But the classic 1960s paper grocery bag at a mainstream grocery store? Nope. Does not exist around here.
I think you’ll see them if and only if local government bans the plastic ones, because the plastic ones are a lot cheaper for the grocery store.
Didn’t exist here either (except at Trader Joes) , until plastic disposable shopping bags were essentially banned.( There are exceptions but supermarkets aren’t one of them) Now my choices are bring my own bag, buy a reusable bag or pay a fee for each paper bag ( if the store chooses to provide them at all).
A few places, but between self-checkout & lack of baggers at lanes, YOU are expected to know how to open those bags if you do not have your own.
I’m flabbergasted that an Oregonian—practically the living embodiment of lumber and paper—didn’t grow up covering their school books with paper bags. Where I grew up on the East Coast, turning grocery sacks into book covers in the 60s and 70s was a point of personal pride. We honed our taping techniques to NASA-level precision, turning ordinary shopping bags into masterpieces adorned with questionable stick-figure doodles (more that one teacher scolded me for it). It was only the messy, trouble-maker kids who didn’t put covers on their books. I imagine they ended up in prison.
Maybe it’s time I revived the trend. I’m thinking of slapping a brown bag cover on my tax returns, patriotically doodling bald eagles and waving flags all over it. Who knows—maybe it will make the IRS less inclined to audit me.
Up here in the PNW, Fred Meyer stores have them. Heaven help you if you carry them by the handles, though, because at least one handle is bound to come unglued from the bag the first time you try.
We have way more of “these sort of jobs” which need to be filled than can be filled by people who only need “extra” money and “a bit of work experience”.
And even to the extent that such jobs are filled by such people: that is no excuse whatsoever for the way that some of the customers treat them. Or some of their bosses, for that matter. The jobs (or at least a lot of them) need doing. They don’t need to come with a side order of extra crap.
As I think I said upthread, they never disappeared around here; they’ve been common all along, though for a while the plastic were even more common.
Ok boomer. Stereotyping the younger generations is as old as time and takes zero critical thought. The Greatest Generatoon said the exact samething about the Baby Boomer Generation… and now you’re just perpetuating the cycle.
These jobs are here for one thing only: to enrich the top 1% of corporate America. This same 1% that reaps almost all the rewards while paying as little as possible in return.
I’ve worked these types jobs before. I’ve also served as a paratrooper during a time of war. If you wonder why the lowest common denominator works these jobs the answer is obvious, the return on sweat equity is almost nonexistent. At least in the military if you get horribly mangled on the job they will take care of you, medical care for the rest of your life and other benefits to easy your transition to civilian life. If you get hurt at a subway while on the job they will toss you out on the street while doing everything in their power to fight your worker comp claim.
Yeah, one of those iconic Gen X memories. Most of my teachers had a policy that you immediately got a detention if you showed up in class with an uncovered book.
I’m now scratching my head wondering why (and how) anyone would use tape to make a paper bag book cover? Where does the tape go and what is it for? The covers we made had four folds and just slipped on. (There were regular book inspections in junior high and high school to verify that our textbooks were covered.)