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How would your job be different if you were doing it in the year you were born?

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Borla, Oct 7, 2016.

  1. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    Basically I spend part of my time sitting at a computer and much of my time driving to customers' (or prospective customers) locations, driving hours at a time, and/or generally traveling. I'm heavily reliant on my smart phone and tablet. Typically my customers see almost no difference in responsiveness from me whether I'm traveling, sitting at home working, or in the office. I pride myself in getting back to people quickly and know that there are occasions where that has gained my company a competitive advantage and additional business. Some days I might receive and respond to over 100 emails and dozens of texts, with a few phone calls scattered in there.

    Yesterday I was considering the disconnect between people doing my job today and people who did my job a few decades ago. I was trying to get some information from someone who is very "old school" and had my job 20+ years ago. Their philosophy on the occasions they have to travel is often "I'm traveling, so I can't do other work until I get back to the office". That's how my job used to be. People would use pay phones to communicate, if they were on the road for a couple of days they might check their messages a handful of times per day and might take a day or two to return even the most important calls. Handwritten memos and formal letters were often used. Someone like me might have their own secretary to handle correspondence, answer the phone, take messages, make appointments, and set up meetings. Essentially it would take a lot more man hours and work to do what technology accomplishes today. I can't imagine handling the volume of business I handle today in that era. Conversely, technology has probably eliminated 50% or more of the jobs that would've been necessary 30+ years ago.

    It was just kind of a weird random thought I had yesterday, then I wondered how other jobs are impacted over the decades and how much really changes.


    Anyone else care to share?
     
  2. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Ha, ha, ha.... hoo, boy....

    For starters, I wouldn't be able to edit several books a year, as I wouldn't have time.

    In 1976, I'd probably be editing typewritten manuscripts (and maybe even some handwritten ones, I'm not sure) that would have to be mailed back and forth to the author. Research for fact-checking would require using encyclopedias, dictionaries, and various other paperbound reference materials. I imagine it would require publishers to have extensive in-house libraries. Fact-checking missions to public libraries probably weren't uncommon.

    Working with authors probably required lots of phone calls and in-person meetings. (My gods...)

    Updating manuscripts would likely be done on a (very expensive) word processor type machine, as around that time word processing was becoming a thing.

    As for laying out the book, it would depend on how rich the publisher was. Manual and phototypesetting were common up to this point, but digital typesetting was coming to fruition then. Regardless, the outputs were still more or less film-based and print-based, kind of like dealing with photography.

    You can now pretty much do everything on-screen up to the point where you want to check print quality, where you need to print out samples. (Even then, that's assuming you're going to produce print books.)

    Ultimately, editing and publishing in 1976 was very labour intensive compared to today. I rarely use a pen now. I use a pen when taking quick point form notes about my workflow. For example, I sometimes make a note of where I left off in a manuscript when closing down a file after I stop working. Or I might jot down a few things to remind myself of certain points. I usually use a pen to track the hours I spend on a project. However, most of those end up going into a Word document editors use called a style sheet. In other words, I don't really need to use a pen at all anymore.

    Though when I started my career back in 2005, I was editing by hand on printed manuscripts. I can't imagine going back to that.
     
  3. Stan

    Stan Resident Dumbass

    Location:
    Colorado
    I'm not sure how to answer this.

    Computer networking didn't exist in 1956. It was pretty much just tabulation and punched cards. I started doing this in 1977, at that time a high speed connection was 7200 baud. 9600 was proposed; but not supported, yet.
     
  4. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    Well, you can see what was going on for any year...at this site.
    http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1968/

    Now, since I was born at the end of 1967...I'll use '68 instead.

    My job is exclusively working on large-scale computer systems. Keeping them up and running, making them faster. Securing them and implementing the newer softwares.
    If did it...it would likely be for a company like IBM (there were very few back then)
    It would likely be implementing their proprietary systems...and orienting teams on using them.

    There were no "open-ended" system where you could just install any software you needed on them.
    Everything was enclosed, exclusive to just that process. Lots of hardware and embedded code.
    And if something went down, then you likely needed to get a new part.
    Data was transferred through large wires to central repositories, again just for that process.

    IT was more about engineering than programming.
     
  5. redravin

    redravin Cynical Optimist Donor

    Location:
    North
    What I do with three other people, (we only just got the third after a hiring freeze was lifted, we've been one short for almost a year) to support the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Team of two counselors, the Veterans Support counselor, the Students In Transition counselor, my counselor who handles the complicated and difficult cases, and the evaluation team would have at that time had over a dozen people supporting them.
    There would be people who would only handle the filing, ones for just the bill paying and typing, etc.
    As assistants, we are jacks of all trades plus we have to know all the rules and regulations.
    The counselors also do a lot more of their own typing and paperwork that they didn't have to do in the old days.
     
  6. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    I would be working for a non-existent government agency with a cover story and all that. Well, it did exist, but it wasn't officially recognized by the government until after the USSR broke apart.

    I came across some punch cards a few months ago, and some film, so I have a feeling that it would be very different.
     
  7. POPEYE

    POPEYE Very Tilted

    Location:
    Tulsa
    In 1963 the milling machine, lathe and hone that I use would be new. The only real change would be tool design and development of coolants in place of oils. Calipers, micrometers, precision measuring tools were in use. I count the increments on the dial on one machine and the other has a digital read out or DRO that reads to the 6th place. That wouldn't be there. I still use Old fashioned math and geometry. I have a machinist manual to help me. Some date back 100 years
    The CNC side is all together different and I don't know how to even turn one on.I can tell you this. All planes are made with larger components. Back in 63 if it took 5 parts to get from point A to point B, they were combined into one part by today and this was made possible by bigger better machines and the ability to machine parts with complicated geometric shapes from one solid block
     
  8. omega

    omega Very Tilted

    I now work for a huge bank. In 1973 I am sure I would have worked for a community bank, or at most a regional bank. I don't think we would have even offered credit cards back then, certainly not debit cards. Loans of course, but I don't know if HELOC's existed back then. Everything would have been balanced by hand. And I would be done at 3, and probably playing golf.
     
  9. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    I'd be using typewriter, most/very likely in a company office.
     
  10. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    What I currently do specifically didn't exist only a handful of years ago.

    What I do in general, licensing of TV content rights, would be quite different from what it is today. The biggest change is that the Internet has sped up the rate of exchange of rights. This is true of international business in general. When I first started in this field in the mid-90s, email was barely in use. The reliance of fax machines, and face-to-face interactions was big. In 1968, global syndication of TV rights was happening, but new shows didn't get around the world quite a quickly.

    There were fewer channels, there was less demand for the exchange of international rights. I already work in a pretty small industry, back then it was minuscule by comparison. Chances are, I wouldn't even be doing work in this field.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2017
  11. genuinemommy

    genuinemommy Moderator Staff Member

    I'd be living in the library instead of my home office.
    it would be odd to have my mentors as my peers. Most of them were pursuing their PhDs the year I was born.
     
  12. AlterMoose

    AlterMoose Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Pangaea
    Yeah, I'm not sure the life of the humble cheese monger has changed all that much since 1978.

    Maybe there weren't quite as many international varieties available?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX

    Oh, I forgot about research. I'd also spend a lot of time in a library, if the office where I'd most likely work didn't didn't have the necessary reference books.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  14. POPEYE

    POPEYE Very Tilted

    Location:
    Tulsa
    I want to be a cheese monger! I just love a stinky, pungent cheese.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. Cayvmann

    Cayvmann Very Tilted

    In 1967 building Intel based servers didn't exist. I'd be happier. If I worked on computers, it would probably be at a university, bank, or government facility. But with my engineering degree I'd probably have a job in that, in 1967.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  16. ralphie250

    ralphie250 Fully Erect Donor

    Location:
    At work..
    in 1981 cars didn't have 100 different modules and the transmissions were not electrally controlled. they were way more simpler then
     
    • Like Like x 1
  17. Daniel_

    Daniel_ The devil made me do it...

    My company was founded at the start of the 20th Century, and the precursor to the type of surgical implants I make were launched after WW2, so in 1970 there would at least have been an industry.

    The bad news is that until the late 1980s, quality systems (part of my job), were not mandatory, and regulatory approvals (the other part of my job) were not a formal requirement until the mid 1990s.

    That said, there was a quality and regulatory function (about 3% of staff headcount, compared to the 15% now) and the company was selling in about 5 countries, not the >80 that I now cover.

    The work was very different. I use email and electronic submission of documents to regulatory agencies all over the world, and a 24 hour turn around is expected in pretty much every country - if anything goes wrong we have mandatory 2 day enforcement requirements for things like product recalls, for example.

    In 1970 it was all done by post, documents had to be typed, and photocopiers were just coming into play. We still have archive copies of some documents that were used at that time and were professionally printed short runs, perfect bound (like fancy magazines) - nowadays I email PDFs...
     
    • Like Like x 1
  18. PlaysWithPixels

    PlaysWithPixels Getting Tilted

    Work was the same. Might have been less of it. I'm told the culture was more laid back. Less safety red tape.
     
  19. Freeload

    Freeload Getting Tilted

    Location:
    Norway
    I work as a software engineer, developing Electronic patient journals and secure communication.

    In '77 i would probably design pre-printed paper forms, notebooks and service the fax machines used for communication.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  20. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    In the year I was born...

    I'd be doing some of my research digging through microfilm and microfiche. The technology certainly wasn't in its infancy, but wasn't that common except mostly in libraries, large companies, & government agencies.