Occupations that no longer exist.

[Eyresandgraces]

I was changing the bed and remembered that in the 1970’s, so not that long ago, dh’s aunt was a tick turner for Fogarty’s.
She spent her whole working day turning pillowcases the correct way round and pointing the corners with her thumbs.
i can’t imagine such a monotonous job.

I found a list of old occupations but Tick turner is not listed.

A Tosher made a living by scavenging the Victorian sewers. Grim.

Please feel free to add any you can think of.

https://rmhh.co.uk/occup/a.html

Bless him

My great great grandpa was a wattle and dauber

Oh, and he went from the 7th legalised croupier to pit boss, to managing three casinos in London in the sixties. He carried with him the knowledge from the gentleman's outfitter's and turned it on with an Austin Powers twist.

He knew all these archaic terms like "Lovat" for tweed. The big joke was, "I think you disappeared Lord Lucan, dad."

The early 90s: we had draughtsman who did all the engineering drawings by hand, we’d give our handwritten reports to typists to produce the final copy, you’d have to book a slot on ‘the computer’ to use a spreadsheet.

Tea lady in the morning and the afternoon had biscuits, when the biscuits were withdrawn as a cost cutting exercise there was nearly a mass walkout.

When I left me and the P/T draughts lady went to the pub and got a bit tipsy. I had to go back for the afternoon and my colleague force fed me coffee because ‘the partner’ was doing my leaving speech. It was the only time I ever saw ‘the partner’.

My Dad started off as a draftsman and worked hiw way up to chartered engineer. He used to talk about the lovely tracer he tried to date (She wouldn't, more than her job was worth) They worked in ajacent offices in the same building. This was in the late 60's

Really?? Do you mean web developer rather than app developer? Why would UX designer no longer be required?

Have we had Lighthouse Keeper? There may still be some, but I think most of the lighthouses are automated now.

Haven't rtwt, so apologies if this has already been mentioned: my brother's first job was cartographer for Ordnance Survey. I remember Mum being so proud of him getting 100% in his theodolite exam. I presume all map drawing is done on computers now.

"We did buy onions from the French onion sellers on their bikes - I found that so fascinating."

Really? I've read about that and that they died out in the 1970s. If you don't mind me asking, whereabouts in the country was this? I presume it was somewhere down south?

Someone mentioned a bird scarer earlier in the thread, they still exist! We were speaking to a rail worker earlier this year who had a hawk to deter seagulls from nesting on the train line. He had the hawk on a longline and let it flap about every now and then.

On a tangent to this, people are very often surprised that COBOL developers are still required and just mention "JCL" and you will get a whole range of puzzled expressions.

Even something like FORTRAN, some younger people are surprised that this still exists

My friends first job in 1977 was as a telex operator

I was one of them! Well with VCRs and TV rental too!

I think there was a version of this where someone used a pipe to blow dried peas at the window!

Bank cheque sorter into alphabetical order - my job each morning! Also encoding amounts on handwritten debit and credit slips using a special machine.

In the northern mill town that I grew up in the local paper always had recruitment ads for Greasy Perchers.

percher, greasy. (i) looks over cloth after it leaves loom, and before it has gone through any finishing process; (ii) examines cloth specially to detect grease marks. percher, mending.

Yes, huge layoffs in those industries over the past 2 years. Well over half a million layoffs. https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/tech-industry-layoffs

Before photocopiers the dreaded Gestetner machine. You had to type your circular or whatever on a flimsy thing called a skin, if you made a mistake it was difficult to correct, it would tear easily. You then put the skin on the machine and inked it and turned the handle to,print off the copies. Sometimes the skin tore, or it came off, or it clogged. Not a job on it's own but part of being a secretary. What a nightmare it was. And there was one called a Banda machine with foul smelling purple ink.
this wonderful thread is a real trip down memory lane! Showing my age here!

I worked as a BT operator for a bit and in a disused (and pretty spooky) party of the building the switchboards were still there. As were the ladies' glamorous powder rooms. All in pink!

I dont know about the cottages but there are still lock keepers on some canals and rivers.

I love that book so much. I think the depiction of office life, while we no longer have office boys or typists, is still spot on. Arguments over biscuits, the office sweep, the cricket match, “the practical communism of office life”. I work in a marketing agency and she’s right about the client too.

They were called milesmen or linesmen,

From way upthread - our parish employs a lengthsman who I think does that sort of maintenance of the 'public' areas.

Happened in Wales - my great gran would speak Welsh to them (she couldn’t speak English) and they would speak Breton French and understand one another. But this would have been 1950s.

Imagine some sadistic spoiled little psycho prince who misbehaved on purpose to see the other boy whipped.

I must be getting old, a lot of these jobs make sense to me. What I don’t understand is kind of the reverse. My sister and my best friend are both senior in large corporations and I honestly don’t understand what they do all day (and I know they are both dedicated and work hard), but all they ever seem to do is talk in meetings where nothing ever seems to be decided, or something small is decided but it has taken a zoom meeting with 8 people for 75 minutes, which I have seen, it’s stilted and nothing seems to be done in the duration, it seems incredibly inefficient. I have had conversations with them both and asked how many rungs down the ladder are the people who actually physically go and do something, and they both chuckled and said we have no idea! It all feels so top heavy?