Did Your Job Disappear?

[Chris Parks]

I was reading the paper today and there was an article predicting that a lot of jobs are going to disappear in the next twenty years due to the digital age catching up with them. When I started work in the mid sixties I was an apprentice compositor in the printing industry and that job completely disappeared due to digital publishing. Did you have a job earlier in your life that has effectively disappeared for whatever reason?

[Handyjack]

I spent 16+ years as a boiler attendant. In the mid 1980's you might have seen an ad a week, by 2000 it was a dying trade. A lot of places with boilers closed or changed to non attended plant.
Today the vast majority of boilers are automatic and do not require a qualified attendant.

[Handyjack]

Other jobs that have gone are tram/bus conductors and railway guards.
In public transport there have been a lot of changes as operators try to save $ and new technology has reduced staffing requirements.

How many people today have someone put fuel in their car and check the tyre pressure?

[Master Splinter]

While not involving me, I've watched the following jobs suffer losses:

Typesetter (which was what compositor turned into before disappearing entirely)
Photographer (the number of retrained professional photographers that I've known is pretty high)
Scanner operator (for Hell Scanners and other rotary image scanners)
The entire film related side of Pre-Press (anyone else remember halftone screens and chemical proofs??)
Garbage man (not the driver, the guys that ran behind the truck)
Journalist (hasn't disappeared, it's just shrunk by 50% across all Australia's newsrooms)

The jobs I am desperately wishing would disappear:
TV producer for reality TV programs.

[Kidbee]

Had a friend whose job disappeared - he was a mattress tester in a mattress factory.

[cava]

When I was growing up in inner Sydney, it was common to see:

1. The rag and bone man with horse and cart.
2. Bread delivery to the house.
3. Vegetable delivery to the house.
4. Milk delivery everyday to the house.
5. Very early on, there was the iceman delivering blocks of ice for chest coolers.
6. People sweeping the streets with a bin on a trolley and a broom. Apparently, this was a stepping stone to being graduated to work on the garbage trucks of the day.

[BobL]

Some jobs have disappeared because of funding cuts and a belief from Administrators that some things are not that important.

When I went to University the Department I did my degree in had 12 technicians to assist with maintaining undergraduate student laboratories and lecture demonstration equipment.
Today, with twice as many students there are 2.

Students today spend 1/4 of their time in laboratories compared to what we used to, there are virtually no demonstrations during lectures, and many laboratory sessions have been replaced by computer simulations !

No wonder so few students want to do STEM and the graduates hands on skills are very ordinary bordering on non-existent.

[code4pay]

I was a hay carter when I was younger, nearly all round or large square bales now.

[robbygard]

not mine personally but i worked in employment and training industry in the 1970's and saw the closure of courtaulds who wove the canvass for tyres and pgh pipemaking division ... i interviewed the last "jointsticker" ... the guy who joined the clay pipes to make the y-fittings ... fortunately for him, he was old enough to retire and ended up doing so

regards david

[ian]

When I was growing up in inner Sydney, it was common to see:

1. The rag and bone man with horse and cart.
2. Bread delivery to the house.
3. Vegetable delivery to the house.
4. Milk delivery everyday to the house.
5. Very early on, there was the iceman delivering blocks of ice for chest coolers.
6. People sweeping the streets with a bin on a trolley and a broom. Apparently, this was a stepping stone to being graduated to work on the garbage trucks of the day.

funny you should mention those trades

I remember the bread man and the milk man and the ice man (but only just for the ice man)


and the street sweeper,
my local guy gave up his cart only a few years ago, he now travels around in a larger gang but comes to our street 2 or 3 times per year.

[cava]

Our bread man was Rocky Gattlerri, and the garbage men tended to be rugby players trying to keep fit in the off season (from Balmain I think).

[Twisted Tenon]

While not involving me, I've watched the following jobs suffer losses:

Typesetter (which was what compositor turned into before disappearing entirely)
Photographer (the number of retrained professional photographers that I've known is pretty high)
Scanner operator (for Hell Scanners and other rotary image scanners)
The entire film related side of Pre-Press (anyone else remember halftone screens and chemical proofs??)
Garbage man (not the driver, the guys that ran behind the truck)
Journalist (hasn't disappeared, it's just shrunk by 50% across all Australia's newsrooms)

The jobs I am desperately wishing would disappear:
TV producer for reality TV programs.

What about the Small Offest Press Operators? That was a whole industry on its own. All the Snap shops, Kwick Kopy, inplants etc. All replaced by high speed photo copiers.

TT

[3 toed sloth]

Years ago, my wife was a tracer for plumbing consultancy companies. The designers would scribble out their plumbing designs and the tracers would sit at their drawing boards and create incredible plans and drawings manually. Now it's all done by computer with C.A.D software.

I was a teacher at TAFE for several years. That's a dying job too. It turns out properly trained teachers are way too expensive. So the courses are "dumbed down" which has a double benefit. Firstly, everyone passes!
Secondly, you need less "teachers" and they don't need to be as well trained/qualified, (or paid). Don't get me started!

[Chesand]

funny you should mention those trades

I remember the bread man and the milk man and the ice man (but only just for the ice man)

My father delivered bread before the war and later firewood in the winter and ice in the summer. One of my uncles delivered milk as the family had a dairy.

[Uncle Al]

I was a bowser jockey for a while in the very early seventies, and remember the tea lady in my first real job in a large organisation. Both jobs are non existent these days. There were heaps of secretaries throughout the organisation, with shorthand skills and incredible typing speeds. These days, most people in low to middle management create their own memos etc. Actually, they had an internal mail delivery person delivering the mail twice a day. Computers, word processors and the internet took over in most cases.

A typewriter mechanic used to come around every few months to service and adjust the typewriters, and I suppose the bloke who had the contract to refill the cigarrette machines on site now delivers large bottles of water.

A few other jobs that have disappeared are the dunny can collector, toll collector and lift driver.

One could go on and on, especially when you consider the whole industries that have or are about to disappear such as car making, footwear and clothing, electronics, small appliances etc. Remember brand names such as Speedwell and Malvern Star bicycles, Kreisler, Pye AWA, Astor and HMV televisions, to name a few.

Alan...