What Old Timey Job Would You Like To Work?

Switchboard operator.

A lighthouse keeper

burlesque stripper

independent private i

small town newspaper editor

small town liberal lawyer

ziegfeld girl

contract star at MGM

gilded age society florist

ship captain of transatlantic ocean liner

One with a good pension, full benefits and a future.

Great choice for crotch watching too, if you get one with a stool that is low enough, OP.

I"m in charge of the dormitory at the lumber camp

I check the gold miners after they shower to make sure they are not smuggling out gold dust on or in their bodies.

Newspaper copy editor

I train the green deckhands on the tramp steamer

well paid, underworked, tenured professor at cosy liberal arts college

pre-war rich bohemian salon hostess in NYC and Paris

Hangman.

[quote]Hangman.

Oh yeah! You get to wear that black leather headpiece.

Movie projectionist

mob moll

daguerreotype fluffer

Elevator operators do NOT push buttons. If they did it would be an automatic elevator.

They use a lever and they can make the elevator run faster or slower and must learn to stop it by pushing the lever back or forward and they stop at a floor using their own line of site.

How do I know? I often have to run one

[quote]Elevator operators do NOT push buttons. If they did it would be an automatic elevator.

Today that is true. But I remember years ago getting into an elevator and there was an operator just pushing buttons. For a long time, it was a union job and the unions kept the job around even when elevators went automatic.

A wealthy duchess living in Scotland and London for shopping and parties with aristocratic peers.

Any kind of copy editor, R10.

[quote]There was an operator just pushing buttons. For a long time, it was a union job and the unions kept the job around even when elevators went automatic.

No, there we no unionized elevator operators.

Investigative journalist for a paper that strives to report authentic news in a factual manner.

Wise-cracking newspaper crime reporter in Chicago in the 1920's, writing notes in a little flip pad. I'd be first on the scene for such crimes as the St Valentine's Day Massacre. My secret DL lover would be a handsome closeted guy in the DAs office who would give me scoops

Milliner.

I would call myself Monsieur ____ and own and operate the most exclusive, exquisite custom millinery shop on Madison Avenue. Rich, well-connected women would travel from all over the world to visit my piss-elegant salon and wear my chic, whimsical, yet classic hat designs.

Adirondack Park Ranger in NY. Or later, Ranger with the National Park Service, especially out west. Both before 1970.

I assume both jobs still come with pensions for long service, but surely they are much more bureaucratic and less adventurous than they used to be.

Telegraph operator in a small old west town. One of the deputies would be my secret lover.

The main library in Jersey City New Jersey still has an elevator where the operator brings the car to each floor by hand.

An up and coming editor in NYC from the 1920's through 1960's.

Of course, I'd have to consult a historic version of DL via old fashioned letter writting.

[quote]No, there we no unionized elevator operators.

NYT 4/16/1920:

ELEVATOR RUNNERS GO ON STRIKE TODAY Union Calls Upon Its l7,000 Members to Quit Work at 9 o'Clock This Morning. WOMEN ENCOURAGE ACTION. Meeting of 4,000 Members Disregards Leaders' Plea Against Hasty Decision. ELEVATOR RUNNERS GO ON STRIKE TODAY Walkouts Preceded Strike. Overruling their officers, who advised them not to strike for the present, more than 4,000 members of the Elevator Operators' Union, which claims a membership of 17,000, voted unanimously last night, at a meeting at Arlington Hall . . . .

Chicago Tribune 8/27/1989:

Those who doubt the elevator's significance need only question just about anyone who was in downtown Chicago in October, 1952. That's when most of the elevator operators in the city's office buildings went on strike.

For five days that month, people were forced to trudge up and down stairwells as union members sought to cut their workweek to 40 hours from 48. They won, but at a price.

'It was quite traumatic as far as the discomfort and the inconvenience,' said John Dwyer, vice president of Local 25 of the Service Employees International Union, with which the old elevator operator local has since merged.

Dwyer is quick to add that operators made exceptions for the handicapped and a few others, but the strike made the rest acutely aware of what they'd be missing without elevators.

Patrick Geary, 40-year veteran operator now working part-time in the Mallers Building, 67 E. Madison St., recalled: 'I've heard of people walking 15 floors in this building.'

Any threat of operators striking now, of course, would be far less daunting; elevators such as Helmut Jahn's futuristic boxes at the Board of Trade simply have no need for them.

Automation that began in the 1950s has decimated the ranks of union elevator operators in Chicago-to fewer than 1,000 from 5,000 more than 30 years ago.

Many of those jobs have gone the way of other anachronisms such as the four automobile elevators at 35 E. Wacker Dr., formerly known as the Pure Oil Building or Jewelers Building. The since-removed elevators were big enough to carry Al Capone in his limousines to the speak-easy he operated on an upper floor of the building.

Ice delivery man.

I'd be a Tailor in St. Paul, MN.

I'd know if you were a grower or shower.

All ties would meet belts and there would always be a break in your cuffs and I'd never sell double-vent suit jackets.

Ditch digger

A dizzy, daffy heiress always up for hijinx.

An artist, jazz singer or well renown chef in Paris during the 1920's.

Movie studio costume designer in old Hollywood.

A nomadic shepherd or a saloon girl in the Old West.

British aristocrat in the late 1800's-1920

r31

Chicago Tribune

Dewey Defeats Truman.

Lesson: Don't beleive everything you read toots

The old-timey job I'd want is Soda Jerk. Any job where they pay you to jerk can't be all bad.

i see R41 in one of those little hats, like Robert Stack has here

Crack journo of the '30s and Cary Grant's sassy ex-wife!

A knocker-up.

Paste-up Artist

I'd like to be a travelling snake-oil salesman. That or a preacher-healer with a tent and accompanied by gospel music.

Neon tube bender.

Chimney Sweep

R2, I think they still have lighthouse keepers. Truro Highland Light has a live-in keeper. I sure hope it doesn't pay all that well.

Job Description: 7 am Turn light off 4 pm Turn light on, unless you forgot to turn it off, in which case, never mind. Change bulb if necessary. 10 pm check light to make sure it's still on before bed Every 6 months: test generator

Honeypot cleaner?

R16, old movie film was highly flammable, (or "inflammable"). You had to be very careful or it would spontaneously combust. Then you'd have everybody crying "fire" is a crowded movie theater and they'd all have their 15 minutes of fame. They'd yak about that like a D-Day Vet into their 90's, 'the great Movie Theater Fire of 2017".

Barker

An old fashioned Chemist

"No, I think you need vitamin cocaine.with a morphine chaser."

Laudanum smoothie, please pharmacist.

As a young guy in my late teens to mid twenties usher in a spectacular midtown movie palace anytime from the 20s to mid 50s.

In NY for example like maybe Radio City or the Roxy.

Work in an olde fashioned candy shop!

Coal deliverer, with my own horse and cart. I'd wear mittens in the cold weather and have a wink and a smile for any handsome scullery boys who opened their tradesman's entrance.

But could we describe you as "madcap," R35?

I want to be queen bee of the office steno pool.

A REAL Joan Holloway Harris in early 60's Manhattan.

Bowling pin setter would be nice. Free bowling after hours!

Buggy whip tester.

Crrrrrrrrrack.

Gumshoe.

Mean secretary to a Broadway talent booker in the depression era. I'd scowl at the broke acts that came by begging for a gig.

R26, milliner? Are you mad, or just desire to be? There is a public park in a very old New England town named after a distant relative Milliner, abutting a bluff named after my family. The Milliner was a wealthy man but died at 45. Reconsider! I beg of thee! "Steel tycoon" or 'Oil Baron" is still available, consider those!

Scrivener

Working at the college swimming pool, watching to make sure the men took a nude soap shower before getting into the pool. It was an actual work-study job at the time.

Ok I'd be a Pittsburg steel tycoon. Or a Buffalo dry goods millionaire. Or the heir to a Chicago meat-packing fortune. Or Jay Gould.

Yes basically I'd like to be Jay Gould.

But a really really really good looking version of Jay Gould. And I'd be bisexual. And robust.

R32, Ice Deliverymen would deliver coal in the Winter, can you multitask? My Dad remembered ice and coal delivery in Brooklyn by horse; though he also remembered Intercontinental Zeppelin travel, too. My Gram called the refrigerator the "ice box" until she died in 1996.

Train conductor on the Orient Express.

My gram too and died quite recently.

[quote] I'd be a Pittsburg steel tycoon.

You could hire someone to spell it right.

Brewer of sparkling mead

A blowsy blonde with a sad wisecrack.

Panelist on "What's My Line."

I'd be a mariner as were all the men in my family. What a fucking miserable job. You leave New England in a 20' open boat for the Outer Banks, hoping that a gale or hurricane doesn't sneak up and kill everybody*. Then you catch Cod with nets by hand - I'd have a buff bod, and leather skin, and hands with calluses thicker than people have on their feet today. If I wasn't snapped-up by a shark while taking a poop off the side of the boat, I'd be taking care not to get my foot caught in the rigging and ripped off**. Or I'd be conscripted into the Navy and blown up on a gun-boat in NY Harbour***. And my family plot would contain all women and children, but no men, as they'd all sail off and just disappear, never to be heard from by anybody again.

But it's a sailor's life for me!

*The Great Gale of 1846, taking 65 men and boys from a town of 6,000 **4th Grandpa Sam ***4th Grandpa Thomas

Lighthouse keeper would have been my ultimate dream job.

Twilight Zone had an episode about an underperforming bank teller who just wanted to read all the time. Book upon book, that's all he wanted. He snuck off to the vault to read in private when he was supposed to be working. Then - an A-Bomb blows the city to Smithereens. He's distressed! Until he stumbles by the remains of the public library. He piles up the books in 12 groups and counts them off - Jan, Feb, .... He's so happy - and then, his reading glasses fall off and break, and the screen goes fuzzy.

R78, Mr. Lighthouse Keeper, I just toured the Highland Light Museum this Summer. When you spy a ship in distress, you have to clang the bell to summon all the men and boys from town to go out in their 20' open boats to rescue the guys trapped in their big ship on the shifted sandbar offshore. All this in the middle of a freezing February Gale.

Then you get to slap the Sea Captain viciously, so there's that.

I'd have a farm in Africa...

Travel Agent. It was the sweet life.

I loved my travel agent. He took me to Amsterdam; then Budapest & Prague. Elsewhere, I think, but he was forced out of business by the Internet.

Think of the $billions saved by the Internet. Where has all that money gone?

That would be fun r83. I like planning trips... I could do it all day. I guess the money went to expedia, orbitz, priceline, etc... right? And these people cut into airline profits & turned flying into this crazy fee-for-breathing situation we have now since they make no money on fares...they make it mostly on fees.

I can't believe travel agent is old timey!

I think I would want to be one of the people building the famous buildings we can see today in Europe. E.g., the churches in Rome...though I know the working conditions couldn't be fun. Most of the artistry in building has been lost. I'd love to learn those techniques (and get paid to use them).

Vaudeville theater owner! Or a candy shoppe owner, like R56 said. I still like gumdrops and those candy-cane sticks at Christmas.

Savior

We always kill them, R86.

Landlady of a rooming house filled with young stenographers.

A gym/health lay teacher in a all boys Catholic Military School

creep

A life like Cilla Black who just passed away at her vacation home in Spain. She was born in Liverpool, worked as a hat check girl at the Cavern Club and discovered by Beatles manager. Lovely life with mansion in Buckinghamshire and Barbados. Lost her husband and soul mate. Loved pink champagne and diamonds.

I too love pink champagne and diamonds.

Camera man on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Milkman or lamplighter

Newsie

My Grandmother ran a boarding house for men only. No women allowed after some time, probably 6 pm or so. It was mostly used by married men who worked too far to return home during the week. It was like "Ma Bailey's place" in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. It was one of those old houses with two parlors, a servant's staircase, and maybe 8 bedrooms. It's electricity has two push buttons for on and off.

She was also the ONLY person who took calls for Connecticut Light and Power after work hours. That was in the days when storms killed power frequently.

Before that, she read tea leaves. She charged for the sandwich, and the reading was free, to comply with NY law. She did that for a decade but quit when she was arrested by the vice squad. She told me years later that it was all bunk. She was an early 20something widow with three kids, so she had to work hard.

Factory Reader. While the worker bees worked on the factory floor, the Factory Reader would read out loud to the masses the news of the day from the newspaper and magazines. Readers were commonly found in cigar rolling factories and other industries without machinery noise. I would act out the latest murder with sounds, work up the masses over some injustice, and throw in my two cents describing even scandal coming out of them moving picture stars. "Ramon Navarro was seen escorting Pola Negri to the Mocambo. Bet he wore more lace than she did."

My father would have been perfect for that job, R97. My mother usually read to us and she was a good reader, but Dad was really great. He did all of the voices, and he sometimes got into it so much he acted like characters in scenes.

Gilly.

I bet those old elevator operators got a lot of tendonitis and carpal tunnel.

Saggar Maker's Bottom Knocker - a young man employed to make the base of a saggar from a lump of fireclay, knocking it into a metal ring with a wooden mallet.

My father worked in a government store room. Workers would come with a requisition and give it to him. "I need paint."

"How much? What color?"

The guy would leave. He'd come back a half an hour later with another requisition. "Two gallons, green."

My father would get the paint.

"How are you going to put it on the wall?"

The guy would leave with the paint. Comes back a half an hour later with a requisition.

"I need paintbrushes."

"What size and how many?"

Guy leaves again....

This went on all day long. My father never broke a sweat, never had stress on the job, had full medical and dental benefits, paid sick leave and vacation.

I worked my ass off as a nurse. Never sat down. Never took a pea break. Pushed beds with 200 lb patients and 50 lb oxygen tanks, 25 lbs of metal medicated drip boxes in them. Weighed 95 lbs. I can barely stand up straight. I kept getting more and more degrees, hoping I could one day get a desk job. Never happened.

Pee break.

An engineer before computers

A 1960s-1970s daytime television game show host.

It always looked like the funnest job in the world!

Oh, R104, I'll give you my slide rule if you can show me how you'd compute the value of Pi with it.

Royal masturbation assistant.

Bosh r106 -- you don't need a slide rule for calculating Pi -- just grind through the infinite series formula.

Here's the link for r108

R104 and R106, quit it. You're both tiresome and no fun to watch.

r110 still uses his fingers to count.

Or maybe he hires a Mexican cheap to do it for him.

What is a Mexican cheap, R111?

I want to be the lucky guy who gets to dress up as Mr. Peanut, and solicit business in front of the Planters Peanut Store.

Notions girl.

Holy Roman Emperor

Sassy shopgirl in a notions store

An elocutionist and white slaver. Any woman presenting vocal fry or baby-voice squeaks would immediately get the ether and be shipped to Ming in Macao.

R96 your grandma sounds like she was a real handful! I loved your story about her, thanks.

I long to be a 1950s truckstop waitress named "Lill": a buxom, chain-smoking bleached blonde dame with a hard-boiled exterior... and a heart of gold.

Thanks, R118!

I see a tall handsome man in your future. Dark of complexion. Perhaps Italian. Yes, that's it, Italian.

Madcap dizzy heiress during the Depression.

A WPA foreman in charge of putting young muscled desperate men to work making parks and pavilions and urinal troughs.

Cigarette girl in one of those fancy nightclubs. I want to wear a short skirt and carry a cigarette tray with shoulder straps.

Similar to R91, there is a great documentary about Freda Kelly, the personal secretary to the Beatles, called "Good Ol' Freda". She was also the president of their fan club from the early days in Liverpool all the way until the break up ten years later. She had a great life.

Switchboard operator.

Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?

Soda jerk

Make sure they test and trial those urinals thoroughly and repeatedly, under your personal inspection, before giving it your seal of approval. R122

Syphilitic whore. So basically, no change from today.

As a teenager, I was crazy for tropical fish, and spent a lot of time and all of my money in pet shops. At the time, I wanted to own a pet shop when I grew up.

Well, I'm 61 now, and STILL want a pet shop. Sadly, they seem to have gone extinct, except for big-box monstrosities.

[quote]Well, I'm 61 now, and STILL want a pet shop. Sadly, they seem to have gone extinct, except for big-box monstrosities.

When I was little, I used to visit the pet shop in the back of Woolworth's. Today, they'd probably be closed down by animal activists, but it was amazing that you could look at animals, eat at the lunch counter and buy miniature Christmas manger scenes from Germany all in one store.

I'd be a copy clerk or scrivener and I'd be really good and comparing documents. And then I would suddenly prefer not to.

The elevator I live in still has elevator operators who pull the level. It looks like a miserable job. They're nice guys who aren't allowed a stool to sit on. They have to stand the whole fucking time.

Knife grinder.

I remember that, R130. They had huge cages filled with parakeets.

[quote]I remember that, [R130]. They had huge cages filled with parakeets.

It was so funny because you went to the pet area and it smelled. It was stale and kind of smelled like sawdust and wet feathers. Then you went over to the lunch counter and it smelled like hamburgers frying.

They also had those little turtles that you can't buy anymore, fish and hamsters, R133.

I want to be the office go-to guy for mimeography!

Bathroom attendant. I have a fetish about people shitting, especially hot guys. Mind you, I'm not into scat -- I don't like to see the actual poo -- but I do get turned on if I see a hot guy sitting on the toilet or hearing them push out a turd and farting in the process.

But it must've been embarrassing for people knowing that there's somebody right outside the stall while you're trying to do your business. I can't even use a public restroom unless the room is cleared of people.

I'd be a bathroom clearer for R137.

"Attention, please: if you're not bobbing on a knob, you must vacate the premises. Lord Shitbreath wishes to poop."

[quote]it was amazing that you could look at animals, eat at the lunch counter and buy miniature Christmas manger scenes from Germany all in one store.

Yes, I think every Woolworth's had the same pet department, and every little kid knew where to find it. It's definitely one of those warm, fuzzy memories from childhood.

Among department stores, my personal favorite for pets was the downtown Eaton's in Calgary. They had a store rabbit, (named Timothy, if I remember correctly, as in Timothy Eaton, who founded the company). Timothy was probably caged after hours, but he was free to explore the store during business hours. He usually stayed pretty close to the Pet Department, but you'd sometimes see him over in Paint or Small Appliances. He was pretty sociable.

I find it vaguely disturbing that so many of you wish to be Mrs. Meers.

I mean, there it is. Hardly anyone would put "Thoroughly Modern Millie" on their list of favorite movies, but you all want to run a hotel, sell tenants into slavery, and shoot darts at people through a straw.

[quote] I mean, there it is. Hardly anyone would put "Thoroughly Modern Millie" on their list of favorite movies, but you all want to run a hotel, sell tenants into slavery, and shoot darts at people through a straw.

Oh, POOK!

Drugging a young man like Trevor and turning him into an addict...... Bill Cosby/Mrs. Meers.

[quote]I find it vaguely disturbing that so many of you wish to be Mrs. Meers.

Mrs. Meers is great; definitely the best thing about "Thoroughly Modern Millie." It's too bad they can't issue a DVD with an option to watch her scenes and skip the rest.

Typist. just sit and type and get paid for it or any other mindless job where you get to sit and think of whatever you want all day.

Fotomat Booth Attendant. Think of all the pervy fotos you get to check out.

Intertype Operator

Radio announcer

Operating the clap board at Warners or Metro in the 1930s..

"Take 18, Miss Crawford!"

[quote]Royal masturbation assistant.

If it's assisted, does it still count as masturbation?

Full tenured state university professor 60s to the 80s - with low workload, high salary, big budget, small class size, new pleasant campus, reasonably bright students, no gadgets, no distance learning.

A Home Economist, I would work for the power company and convince housewives to buy modern appliances and buy "tota electric homes "

I'd like to work in an office in Manhattan and take the train to go in. It's my favorite old-timey job from way back in February of this year.

1930's/1940's Hollywood star.

Hedda Hopper but even bitcher and less Republican.

Girlhood friend of Dorothy Zbornak (but I would have to be the pretty one)

[R155] Well hello, Lauren Bacall.

Spy during The Cold War

Tiparillo?

Chimney Sweep

Eleanor of Acquataine

Courtesan

Master.

Should like to be a switchboard operator for old fashioned answering service like in Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Just think of all the delicious gossip and dirt one could overhear; not to mention taking down salacious messages.