Obsolete jobs

[Tom]

Never thought about some of them. 

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/649701/obsolete-jobs?utm_source=GetTheElevatordotcom

[cloudbase]

I still do radiotelegraphy, though of course not as a job.

Flight engineers are pretty much a thing of the past.  Most ships have done away with radio operators.  Even the navy no longer has a radioman rating.  Nobody uses a sextant to navigate any more.  Celestial navigation is an elective at the Naval Academy, though it's mandatory at the Merchant Marine Academy.  It won't be long before machines start calling balls and strikes in beisbol.

[Matt Story]

Steeplejack  This guy Fred Dibnah was some thing of a BBC TV star in the early 80's.  Fascination character.  Have a look at about 26minutes into the linked video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffv8YeoeeM

[twowheeladdict]

That article could have been written 50 years ago. 

Today with automation, robots, etc, a lot of minimum wage jobs are going away.  The more the push to raise minimum wages the more economical it is to invest in machines.

The order taker at fast food places are being replaced by Kiosks and phone apps.

Cashiers are being replaced by self checkout.

Most ares in the US have self serve fuel pumps. 

Of course this also means more jobs keeping those machines running, and writing the software, and building them.

Who has other examples of jobs that have gone away in the last 50 years and/or are soon to go away?

[RinkRat II]

        Piano player in a whorehouse.
       
        Paul B 

[Murray]

Steeplejack  This guy Fred Dibnah was some thing of a BBC TV star in the early 80's.  Fascination character.  Have a look at about 26minutes into the linked video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffv8YeoeeM

They called rope access technicians now and still very much a thing, run a bit of a tighter ship these days.

[Redrider]

Mechanic. Seems every one now is just a parts changer acting on Youtube experts' opinions.

[bigbikerrick]

Bank Teller, I know because my wife has been one for 20 years. Its all being replaced by online banking, self serve kiosks, phone banking, etc. - has accelerated the decline in tellers, and "do it yourself" banking. Also ,banks are doing their best to phase out cash. They want to go to a cashless society.  I read about that in a book called "megatrends" back in the early eighties.
Rick.

[sdcr]

Newspaper advertising account rep, AKA, print advertising sales.

I did this for 35+years, retiring in 2020.

 Definitely,  a career that is  on the way out

[ScepticalScotty]

I too do radiotelegraphy, though I am not a professional. Just a mere amateur. 2E0OZI

[Texas Turnip]

Classified ads in newspapers. I remember when there was 3 or 4 pages of help wanted truck drivers. Now zero.

Tex

[Moparnut72]

I had a part-time job running the inserting machine at the local small town newspaper. It went online only. All the inserters and pressmen lost their jobs. Happening at a lot of newspapers.
kk

[wymple]

Robotics has put a lot of manual labor work under. Things are being filled, labeled, packed, etc that used to be very labor intensive. We had 100 packers in the plant I worked at starting in 1990. I doubt there are 20 now and they produce twice as much product as they did in 1990.

[dave1068]

I still do radiotelegraphy, though of course not as a job.

Flight engineers are pretty much a thing of the past.  Most ships have done away with radio operators.  Even the navy no longer has a radioman rating.  Nobody uses a sextant to navigate any more.  Celestial navigation is an elective at the Naval Academy, though it's mandatory at the Merchant Marine Academy.  It won't be long before machines start calling balls and strikes in beisbol.

Funny you mention that, Im an FSO for a defense contractor and just had to send a visit request to another one as one of out guys does radioman duties on subs

[ray bear]

once apon a time I had a brother in law that was a ticket writer he went from grocery store to grocery store painting all the weeks specials on the front windows , these days its all printed advertising

[Canuck750]

I think long haul truckers will be replaced with self driving tractor units, these systems have been undergoing rigorous testing for many years, drivers will be needed for driving in the citiesm, trailers will be marshalled at the outskirts of cities and robotic tractors will take the load from there, no rest breaks, these robotic rigs can learn to follow one another in groupings up to ten or less.

[steven c]

 I used to work on multi image slide shows using a Forox animation camera,then power point came along.....

[Huzo]

I think long haul truckers will be replaced with self driving tractor units, these systems have been undergoing rigorous testing for many years, drivers will be needed for driving in the citiesm, trailers will be marshalled at the outskirts of cities and robotic tractors will take the load from there, no rest breaks, these robotic rigs can learn to follow one another in groupings up to ten or less.

Yep.
Here we call it a properly organised rail system.
We don’t have one yet. Why can’t rail cars be standardised to take containers and every truck skel will accept that container.
Well run depots with quick change infrastructure would streamline the process...(and I’m an interstate truck driver...!)

[nc43bsa]

When I was a kid, my doctor had his office in a 10-story building with an elevator operator, a switchboard, and a letter drop from the top floor to the basement.  While waiting for the elevator I could watch the outgoing mail fall in the glass-fronted chute from floor to floor.

Another building in town (I forgot which one) had the clear pneumatic message tubes.

[LongRanger]

I was a Float Manager at a bank 30 years ago. With electronic check presentment, that job is now obsolete.

[Moparnut72]

Railroad trains are put together by unmanned engines at the BNSF yard in Stockton California.
kk

[steven c]

 Ski areas are replacing the lift ticket with a high tech credit card  size pass that you can load up on line or at the lift ticket window and once in the lift line they have  gates with a sensor that reads the card (when it works) and opens the gate. So now they don't have to have hire one or two people to check  lift tickets.

[mechanicsavant]

Technology stole my dream retirement job. Diesel fitter ! Yup , I’d been training too .
A diesel fitter is seated in a back room @ a gentleman’s club . Just befor the entertainment goes onstage using his powers of observation he reaches into a big box of G-strings pulls out an appropriate one & proclaims Diesel-fit-er.

[Joliet Jim]

In my youth I made copies at the copier. Xerox reproduction center doing copy jobs for clients. First downtown Chicago job I had. Oh also did a stint on the nightshift at the Sears warehouse pulling appliances for the next days deliveries.

[bacongrease]

  yup.....printing.   Some newspapers are not printed locally,  one firm prints several area/cities papers.

[Huzo]

        Piano player in a whorehouse.
       
        Paul B 

Did you hear the one about the tiny piano and the 12” pianist..?

[rocker59]

  Why can’t rail cars be standardised to take containers and every truck skel will accept that container.
 

Ummm.  Here in The USA, intermodal is standardized.  And intermodal volume is huge.








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[pete mcgee]

The good old "Dunny man".
The nocturnal superman that used to collect the full poo can from your outside toilet.
Used to be a thing for a few years AFTER Australia got colour TV in some quite big not so rural cities. Had mainly died out by late 1970s to early 1980s.

[Tom]

My first job.  Service Station Attendant.   

[Lee Bruns]

For the last 20 years I've been told that machinists will be obsolete. I have tried in vain to explain why this is preposterous, but people sitting at desks are convinced that they know more about machining than I do. Machining has changed for sure. It's no longer repetitive 'button pushing', smoky, noisy work. Now it's computer programming, automation.