# Jobs you had that are obsolete **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 5, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062 "2010-04-05T19:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/41 "2010-04-06T23:44:38Z")
In high school, I separated the individual stories out from AP’s tickertape feed at the local paper, maintained the photofax machine and separated the pix from that too. In college, I ran the newsfilm developing machine at one of the local TV stations. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/42 "2010-04-06T23:45:04Z")
For a summer job before I was able to drive, I peeled cascara or chittam bark. We would go out into the woods with a pocket knife and a couple of gunny sacks. You had to climb the tree, slit the bark vertically, use your hand to pry between the bark and the tree and slip your hand under the bark so it would pop off. The layer under the bark was very slippery so you had to start at the top of the tree and work your way down. Fell out of many a tree and onto the forest floor miles from help. The bark was used for laxative but was discontinued as unsafe. Man, you did not want to touch your lips with your fingers!. Chittam is Chinook Indian jargon for “shit come”, really. We brought it home, dried it in the sun, broke it down and sold it for about .25/lb. > **[Frangula purshiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhamnus_purshiana)** > > Frangula purshiana (cascara, cascara buckthorn, cascara sagrada, bearberry, and in the Chinook Jargon, chittem stick and chitticum stick; syn. Rhamnus purshiana) is a species of plant in the family Rhamnaceae. It is native to western North America from southern British Columbia south to central California, and eastward to northwestern Montana. > The dried bark of cascara was used as a laxative in folk medicine by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, and later worldwide in conventiona... ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/43 "2010-04-06T23:52:20Z")
I used to operate a plastic molder. I don’t know if they’re all automated now but I would think it’s likely. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/44 "2010-04-06T23:59:08Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > When I was a kid, I worked for a gas station convencience store. One of my jobs was to sort the returnable soda pop bottles so that the respective drink companies could pick up their bottles. > > Gone! WOW! Me too! That is, I was a ‘bottle-boy’ at a neighborhood grocery store. This was back in the 1960s. The smell of spoiled milk still brings back the memories of that first summer climbing on the bottle stacks trying to keep the damned things from crashing down. I worked my way up to assistant deli manager before I graduated high school. I always remember this when I check out at a grocery and still tip the guy or gal who takes my groceries out to the car. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/45 "2010-04-07T00:15:08Z")
I used to work as an attendant in a stand-alone video games arcade… not many of those around anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/46 "2010-04-07T00:39:14Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > With the gradual implementation of self-checkout lanes, the grocery cashier will eventually be phased out as well. I thought this too when the Meijer I worked at got them. That was in 1995. 15 years later, and they still have plenty of cashiers. I think they are still needed(besides, they bag now too). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/47 "2010-04-07T00:42:04Z")
My first job out of school, I did a lot of things, but around 1986 one of them was drawing up plans for electrical cabinets. Drawing them by hand, on frosted mylar, using technical pens, electric erasers, and “drafting machines”. [Drafting machines](http://www.artsupply.com/alvin/draftingmachines.htm) were fancy articulated ruler-and-square arrangements that hung down from the tops of our drawing boards and allowed us to move our straightedges all over the drawing boards and still keep things parallel. There were a wide variety of specialized instruments used to do these drawings: set squares, french curves, lettering guides, stencils, table brushes, and the green stuff we covered the drawing boards with. The ‘electric erasers’ were motorized, because erasing ink on mylar by hand would just take too long. There were cabintets where we hung the finished drawinggs. There was also the equipment used to reproduce the drawings, which used ammonia, stank horribly, and yielded actual _blue_prints. All of this equipment is hard to find now. I’m trying to set up a similar old-school drawing table now, and even in Toronto, it’s hard to find this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/48 "2010-04-07T00:51:08Z")
Not all, but a big part of my job was sending messages on an old fashioned teletype machine, or something very like it. It had a big roll of yellow paper and a keyboard to type out Important Messages. Press button, send… A bell would ding and it would spring into life when an Answer to the Important Message came in, busily chattering away, and I would have to drop everything, rip off the sheet of yellow paper with the reply, and hand deliver it to whoever. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/49 "2010-04-07T01:05:26Z")
I sold dried ox tails to troupes of troubadours. TOP THAT! I did B&W processing and printing for a local lab. For C-41 and E-6, we had machines, the K14 all got sent to Kodak (yeah, before Qualex). But for B&W, it was me. I OWNED that darkroom, man … ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/50 "2010-04-07T03:03:38Z")
Back in the eighties, part of my job as a quality auditor in the auto industry was to maintain the paper methods sheets for all production jobs. Now, everything is put online and can have minute changes made at any time. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/51 "2010-04-07T03:35:10Z")
I used to press the Letraset onto the ads and headlines for our school newspaper. And I used to hand draw posters and programmes for theatre shows. I don’t miss either of those laborious tasks. I loves me some Photoshop. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/52 "2010-04-07T03:52:58Z")
Writing assembly language for IBM 360 and 370 Mainframes using OS/MVT and MVS. After that I was writing assembly language for Perkin-Elmer mini-computers. Also writing assembly language for the 6502 microprocessors for the Apple II. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/53 "2010-04-07T04:04:00Z")
> [@SkeptiJess](#): > > My first job (in 1975) was as a switchboard operator for an answering service. The old fashioned “one ringy-dingy” kind with jacks that plugged into sockets that corresponded to phone numbers for different busnesses. Totally obsolete, of course. When I went back to university, I had a part-time job that allowed me to work evenings and weekends–operator at an answering service. We did have these weird dedicated computer terminals to log into, and wore headsets. Answered the call, gave information or took a message. Typed out pages for doctors. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/54 "2010-04-07T04:08:52Z")
My mother still works as a piano tuner. She’s one of a few hundred nationwide who are actually officially trained and part of the Guild, and one of the few dozen women. **NoClueBoy** : You have to explain where in the world there are enough troubadours to buy enough ox tails to make that job worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/55 "2010-04-07T05:02:33Z")
I was a radio DJ. We had no carts or CDs at that point, I actually put vinyl records on turntables, cued them up by spinning the turntable backwards and listening for the silence, setting the board for which input should be broadcast. I also had to pull news off of the AP teletype which was a dot matrix printer with the continuous feed paper (though not greenbar) which wasn’t perforated; when you wanted to pull off the latest stories, you laid a ruler across the printer and pulled the paper against it to get a straight edge and clean rip. There are still DJs, but it’s not like that any more, at all. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/56 "2010-04-07T05:10:18Z")
> [@Pullet](#): > > My mother still works as a piano tuner. She’s one of a few hundred nationwide who are actually officially trained and part of the Guild, and one of the few dozen women. Is that job really obsolete, though? There are plenty of (acoustic) pianos out there, and they need to be tuned. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/57 "2010-04-07T06:55:04Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Is that job really obsolete, though? There are plenty of (acoustic) pianos out there, and they need to be tuned. And they’ll go away when the acoustic guitar goes away. Musicians like acoustic instruments for certain things. Heck, now there’s a retro movement of restoring old pianos. OP: Too young to have had a true “job”, but I was an audio cassette copier for my church. I also learned to copy VHSes. Yeah, copying CDs and DVDs is a similar job, but it’s not quite the same. ---
**Author:** ![longPath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@longPath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/longPath)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/58 "2010-04-07T07:24:03Z")
I used to travel around to the data centers of large banks and repair the equipment used to microfilm all of the cheques they processed. They consumed many miles of 16mm film. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/59 "2010-04-07T07:57:49Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Is that job really obsolete, though? There are plenty of (acoustic) pianos out there, and they need to be tuned. It’s getting more obsolete. Used to be any place that needed regular music (churches, bars, schools, performance halls) had to have a piano and a tuner to go with it. Now, unless you are performing classical music, why would you get a real piano when a keyboard sounds just as good and is easier to store? Pretty much the only people my mom tunes for any more are fancy hotels, folks who inherited pianos from their grandparents, and churches who got an old piano donated. Those last two rarely ask for regular service. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062/60 "2010-04-07T14:20:31Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > It’s not obsolete in Oregon. You’re not allowed to pump your own gas here. I knew there was something I liked about your state. It was actually a job I enjoyed and must have been good at; two owners got into a bidding war for my services. Around here things are so far into self serve that God help you if you do need someone else to do it. I was on my way to a formal function and hit the full service pump because I didn’t want my tux to smell of gas. The attendant didn’t do the windshield, couldn’t find the dipstick, and I had to show him how to lock the pump to automatic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jobs-you-had-that-are-obsolete/535062.md?page=4)