:smack:
I thought it said Taxi driver. Oops.
Yeah, maybe that job’s on the way out… 
I spent two years in electronics school and got an Associate Degree. Then got a job with a tv shop servicing tv’s and stereos. Within a few years it was obvious the service business was dying. Everyone felt it wasn’t worth repairing them anymore. They could buy new at Walmart. Also, the independent tv shops couldn’t compete with Walmart. Or wholesale cost was more than what they charged retail. That ended my dream of owning a Zenith tv dealership.
Back to college and trained in computer programming. Made a good living for 20 years. Now, that is out largely sourced to India. Built & sold custom PC’s as a hobby/business in the mid 1990’s. Fuc*ing Walmart made that impossible by 2002. Bastards sell pc’s for $499. :mad: Twice in my life Walmart has screwed me.
I still have a job in Tech Support and Networking. I write SQL reports. My career is ok for another 20 years until I turn 65. I would not encourage a 17 year old to get into Electronics or computer programming. You’ll be on your ass begging for a job by the time you are 45. Those careers won’t exist by 2040. In house Programmers that write real code will be very rare by then.
Depends on the type of agent. I’m an analyst with 23 years in the leisure travel industry and yes, the AAA person who would book you a night at the Ramada is on the way out. On the other hand, take the example of rich old folks like my parents… they wanted to do a reunion trip to Costa Rica. They made one call, and wrote one check. We had 10 people flying out of three different cities… meeting up in Costa Rica with the guy with the sign to get us to our hotel (we never touched our bags). Had a guy who was a research scientist as our guide to tell us about the flora and fauna. Bags picked up from our rooms, buses, tours, boat rides, getting to see sea turtles laying eggs, meals, horseback rides, rafting, etc., etc., etc. and I never had to touch my wallet. This industry is thriving despite the economy.
? Bugs? I was a refueler for both the Air Force and an international airport for around 8 years. (to be fair that was back in the 80s :D), but I’ve never heard that term, what’s it mean?
Visual Effects model builders.
That’s a rather extravagant perk. Where do you work?
I was thinking that today while waiting to see one of my doctors. He was using voice-recognition software to dictate his case notes and I thought “Dang, I’m glad I’m not doing transcription for a living.” Same thing for typing; almost all of the engineering and technical staff I work with do their own typing save for when they get overloaded and need help.
Another profession that’s dying out are folks who make carts, carriages and the like for horses to pull. There used to be 3 or 4 companies that made carts for driving horses, from really small horses up to ones big enough to be used with a draft horse, now there’s only one or two, and I think one’s in bankruptcy now. A well-made pleasure driving cart is an art form in and of itself.
I haven’t seen any lamplighters lately.
Lighthouse keepers are virtually gone.
Those guys who used to operate boom gates at railway crossings…
Stokers.
Whale oil procurement agent/salesman.
Guillotine specialist.
Wooden peg leg sculptor.
Witch dunking chair craftsman.
Morse code technician.
I tried them all but for some reason, simply couldn’t make a buck.
Beeper manufacturers.
Weren’t most of them made by people like Motorola, who now make mobile phones as well as radios anyway?
Only in the US and some other countries. You can still buy whale oil on the world market.
Not just Oregon. You can’t pump your own gas in New Jersey, either. And there are some Massachusetts towns that mandate that station attendants pump the gas.
From the looks of things, it appears that proofreaders are a dying breed. Right after typesetters.
And regarding the lack of travel agents: I guess people in Austria will always have to explain to tourists that they are thousands of miles from the Outback.
Open outcry floor traders.
Except for index options and a few agriculture pits, most trading is now done electronically.
Not true for quality watches and shoes. And even for low-end watches they make a good buck just replacing the batteries.
Taxi-dancers are now lap-dancers.
Indeed, I read a couple years back that Rolex will pay for you to go to Horological school, because there’s a shortage of people trained to repair high-end mechanical watches. Thought about taking them up on it, actually.
I’ve heard that one before from people who are clueless about what goes on in libraries.
We have Quality Shoes–“Home of the Bootmobile”–that does a large business repairing footwear and other leather items of all kinds. They also duplicate keys and stock a large inventory of boots – plus a few hats–for sale. I’m not worried about the possibility they might go out of business; they evidently succeed by finding related niches they can fill.
I thought locomotives just about everywhere were either electrified or diesel-fired. Where did they still have coal-fired engines recently enough for anyone reading this message board to have done this kind of retraining?
Well, coal-fired steam engines were in service, in most cases, into the '60s in the United States.
Even when the steam engines themselves had been retired and scrapped, there were plenty of firemen on the boards that had decades of career in front of them, and the unions negotiated to keep them around. Even today, the left side of a train is the “fireman’s side.” Up until the 80’s, a freight train crew would have been 5 people–engineer, fireman, head brakeman (in the locomotive,) conductor and rear brakeman (in the caboose.)
End-of-train devices did away with the caboose, so in some cases all 5 crew members were moved to the head end (there were even some ‘hammerhead’ diesel locomotives built with extra large cabs because of this) before the railroads finally started paring the crews down to 2–engineer and conductor. The companies want crews of 1 now–well, what they want is a crew of 0 and automated control, but that becomes too expensive and space-agey to be realistic anytime in the near future.
Anyway, lots of firemen went on to be requalified as engineers or conductors, and eventually the folks who didn’t retired.
Railroading is a funny industry in many ways. They have their own retirement fund, much like teachers, and on the labor side, it’s essentially all Union. Amtrak, for example, has different agreements with different Unions, which is why a coach attendant, for example, can’t fill in for a waiter in the dining car–different trades (even though it would be a simple matter to actually do it.) That’s not meant to be a bash on Unions, incidentally–just an explanation of why things are the way they are.