My father-in-law recently asked me to explain what I do for work in my “day job” (besides writing here for Inc.com). My answer was both truthful and gobbledygook, something like:
“I create organic and paid digital content, and then leverage SEO and social media along with targeted ad spends to build audiences and drive engagement, while adjusting the components to reflect and expand the LTV of each person who engages with us, but also ensuring we provide them with great user experiences.”
I have to give him credit; he played along as if that actually made sense. But it also got me thinking about how my job didn’t exist a few years ago–and about how many things our grandparents and great-grandparents did for work don’t exist anymore either.
Now, for Labor Day, the folks at genealogy and DNA-testing company MyHeritage, wrote to tell me they’ve compiled a list of jobs that used to be commonplace, but have completely disappeared from the workforce. Starting with their list, I added a few others below. Here are 17 jobs nobody (or almost nobody) does anymore.
1. Elevator operators
We’ll start with this one, because my mom did this job in a department store when she was a teenager in Montreal, where the other workers nicknamed the elevator operators “yo-yos.” I think she lasted one day.
2. Knocker-uppers
How did people know when to wake up–before alarm clocks, but after everyone lived within earshot of a rooster? They paid someone to knock on their door or window in the morning.
3. Video store owners
The last remaining Blockbuster video store in the world has a Twitter feed. It’s hilarious, and occasionally NSFW, so that’s on you. But there aren’t many people still trying to make a living in this field anymore.
4. Breaker boys
“A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United States and United Kingdom,” according to MyHeritage. “They separated impurities from the coal by hand.”
5. Factory lectors
Lectors read aloud to the workers who were actually manufacturing things in factories. They’re obsolete now of course because we have radios, the Internet, headphones–and come to think of it, a lot fewer factory workers.
6. Icemen
These workers cut large blocks of ice from frozen rivers and lakes during winter, so it could be stored in the summer (and ultimately delivered to customers). Obviously this was all before electric refrigeration.
7. Computers
Have you seen the movie Hidden Figures? Do so. Computers were workers, mostly women, who spent their days performing mathematical calculations–and then checking them. They were replaced by, well, by computers.
8. Gandy dancers
“A Gandy dancer was an early railroad worker whose job was to lay and maintain railroad tracks,” MyHeritage reports. “In England they were called ‘navvys.’ Their nickname comes from the methodical dance movements of the railroad workers.”
9. Gas station attendants
I’m aware there are a few places where these still exist, of course. I even live in one of the two states where they’re legally required. So they’re not quite 100 percent gone. Enjoy them while you can still occasionally find them.
10. Switchboard operators
Connecting phone calls once literally required people–mostly women–who manually moved phone cords into outlets. Author trivia: My grandmother did this job, working the switchboard for radio station CJAD in Montreal 50 years ago.
11. Pullman porters
Before the days of transcontinental flight, when you’d take an overnight train from say New York to Chicago, these were attendants who would wait on rail passengers and set up their berths so they could sleep at night.
Most porters were African-American. It was hard work, and the porters endured hardships, but it was also one of the few reliable jobs open to many black Americans in the Jim Crow era that offered a step up into the middle class.
12. Print journalists
Years ago, before the advent of the Internet, many journalists wrote exclusively for media entities that would print their stories on actual paper. These “newspapers” and “magazines” then had to be physically distributed to readers.
13. Book peddlers
MyHeritage: “Book peddlers were travelling vendors. Also known as “book canvassers,” they went door-to-door selling books. For many rural Americans, this was their only way to obtain new reading material.”
14. Lamplighters
When street lights were powered by oil, someone had to go out and light them at night.
15. Bobbin boys
“Bobbin boys worked in textile mills in the 18th and early 19th centuries,” according to MyHeritage. “Their job consisted in bringing bobbins to the women at the looms, and then collecting the bobbins that were full with spun cotton or wool thread.”
16. Hemp dressers
Again from MyHeritage: “Hemp dressers worked in the linen industry separating the coarse part of flax or hemp with a hackle. They were also known as hacklers.”
17. Scissors-grinders
These folks went door to door, offering to sharpen scissors and knives. Now… well, I guess a lot of us just buy new ones.
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