I posted above about my years at a magazine publisher.  I also worked in a library before computers, during the time of hand stamping; those little envelopes and cards in the front of the books; hand alphabetizing the book cards; card catalogs, etc. 

I also worked in the library during the change to digital.  Remember MS-DOS?   Remember Free-Net, before AOL and Compuserve?  Remember those sticky price tag things with the "date due?" 

I’m the first to tout the wonders of digital searching…but I loved that old card catalog.  The handwriting on the cards was so precise and was a graphological history of everyone who worked there over the years. 

I remember this, the sounds of the typewriters, the smell of the ink and carbon paper.  My job in high school was a receptionist/secretary at an eye doctor’s office.  All the patients’ files were in filing cabinets, not a database on the computer.  I used an electric typewriter and one of those big black cassette recorders to dictate the letter back to me, which meant turning it off and on and off and on to catch up on occasion.  A real dictionary to look up words, not one online or with a ‘word’ program, I was my own spell check.  Carbon paper was used for copies.  I guess though aside from my job  during those years, one thing I remember the most that in my typing class at high school there were only 2 electric typewriters, the rest manual, and all the students use to "fight" over those 2 electric typewriters. 

All hail to Bette Claire McMurray (Graham) who invented "Liquid Paper." That wondrous woman became a close friend in the 70s when she asked me to find someone to evaluate a non-profit she was contributing to in Dallas, Texas (and that led to a great friendship with the woman I found in Dallas for her, too).

Bette started a foundation to help others, in her name, and later the Geshon Foundation — always giving, she adored her employees, and friends and loved "office work."

She was a devoted Christian Scientist. Now I realize how correct she was regarding doctors and medicine, besides using tempera paint to cover errors (later "Liquid Paper").

I feel absolutely ancient reading this and, unfortunately, remembering it. 

Remembering it fondly, however, because we were nicer, somehow, to each other back then.  We don’t need each other as much, perhaps, because the computers do it all for us. 

One thing I miss are the answering services.  I had my lines bridged so I could listen in while they answered.  Much nicer than having someone tell them to hold while they checked to see if you were there which always made people wonder if you were there but simply didn’t want to talk to them.  If was there, I said "thank, you I’ve got it" and if I wasn’t there, they simply took a message.  Certainly nicer than the answering machines and voice-mail of today. 

I learned that trick from a friend’s mother who was vice-president and secretary at their family business and as secretary it made it easier for her because she only had to take the calls that really were important.  Important calls were also "put through" at night by the answering service. Something answering machines and voice-mail can’t do. 

Everything has changed so much.  Even publishing.  The galleys now arrive in pdf file.  I wonder how many people today even know the  editing marks since they really don’t need them.  They just open up the file and edit away.  And even that is made easier with the spell-check programs.

It certainly is a new world.   I do miss the old one.

There  was a thermofax (I think that’s what it was called) machine, that copied on flimsy paper.  The paper would tear easily and the copy would eventually fade, but it was a miracle at the time.  As well, I sat in a sound-proofed booth working, what would be the fore-runner of the word processor.  It punched holes in cards, stops could be programmed into it so that form letter could be "personalized" —  they were always bringing people around to view this machine.

In high school we were to "dress for the office" one day a week.  That involved black skirts, white blouses, hose and heels.

 

I remember when we got word-processing computers at a radio station I worked at in Kalamazoo around 1992. We thought we were finally going "high tech", because we didn’t have to use typewriters, anymore.

One thing I remember about typewriters was having to use carbon paper. That could be a real chore. For the college newspapers I wrote for back in the early- to mid-1980’s, they needed two copies of every story written. One of them the editors used to make editing marks, this type of thing. Also, everything was written double-spaced, to leave room for editing marks, cutting and pasting (scissors!).

 As managing editor for The Ferris Torch, it often required major surgery to put all of the necessary editing marks on a reporter’s copy or cut things up. That was mostly with the rookies. At the print shop, those edited stories had to be re-typed and printed out a special type of laminate paper that was now "camera ready" (to be sent to the big printer). Then they were run through a pasting machine so they could be pasted onto light tables. The copy was a lot bigger than a regular newspaper page on the light table. One or two pages for each table, with a series of tables around the room. A special pen whose ink would not show up in the next day’s newspaper was used to make editing or proofing marks at that point. The copy where proofreading marks were necessary was then cut with a razor blade, removed from the table and re-typed, re-pasted, and laid back onto the lighting table.

Nowadays, all of that can be done on a computer. No need for razor blades, paste, cameras, any of it.

When I wrote for The Grand Rapids Press in 1985-‘86, we stringer-reporters all had to buy TRS-80 Radio Shack computers. The thing looked like an over-sized calculator. It was flat (no raised screen), and the screen was dot-matrix. It did have a nice keypad, though. Funny story: around 2002 I was in the press box for a Grand Valley State football game, and ran into a G.R. Press reporter who was still using the TRS-80. Now, this computer had about 8k (8-thousand bytes) memory, 16k for the best models, so it could only store about 8 to 12 pages of written copy. I asked the reporter, "Why in the world are you using a TRS-80, when the laptops today have millions of bytes of RAM (memory)?!"  His reply? "This computer never freezes up. I need a computer that I know I can write and send my stories from right after the game."

We were on a " party line" for a short while.  Everyone hated it.  But, what a hoot!  I don’t really remember exactly how it worked, but my mother was quite the talker.  She and my Aunt Addie would get on the phone and talk for what seemed like hours.  Every now and then Mrs. Weidemeyer would interrupt and say, " Deana, you and Addie have been hoggin’ this line for over an hour!"  Then all three would hurl insults. 

My dad stayed out of it for the most part.  But one day, he and I were working in the yard when Mrs. Weidemeyer drove by and rolled down her window.  She yelled, " Max, you’ve got to do somethin’ with that wife of yours!" My dad answered, "My Lord, Florence, what on earth are you suggesting? I have a child standing here!" 

Unfortunately, I recall sexual harassment in the late 70s and 80s, and how difficult it was to prove.  It is still pervasive in office settings, in more subtle ways.  It made for very uncomfortable working conditions—including knowing I was better qualified than the man who was hired at the same time, but he was paid more.  There were days I winced at the thought of going to work, but, of course, went anyway.  I frequently interviewed at other firms during my lunch hour.

I remember wearing heels and little wool suits, thinking women should get an allowance for pantyhose.  I recall one of my first supervisors, when I was straight out of college, saying "Ladies always wear hose, even in the summer."  So, in her office, even if you were wearing sandals, you had to wear pantyhose, in the Atlanta summers—I am so glad that rule is gone forever, along with the suits.  I still have the first suit I bought on sale at Gimbels.  I keep it for nostalgia.  It looks like doll clothing—I don’t remember being that tiny, but I was.

Here is a little list of things that came to mind:

IBM Selectric typewriters - with the removable "ball" of type

Carbon paper

Correc-type

Eaton’s Corrasable Bond paper

Black pumps and nude stockings

A switchboard operator - a real live person!

Half-hour lunch at the drugstore counter: egg salad and bacon sandwich on whole wheat toast and an iced tea

Muzak in the elevator: the theme from Mondo Cane

Overflowing ashtrays on many desks

Actual In/Out baskets on every desk

Handwritten or typed memoranda on company forms

(O tempore, O mores! How things have changed!)

 

Those light brownish/dark yellow/Manila Inter office transfer envelopes with parellel lines all down the front and back….you would cross off the name of the sender and to whom it was to and reuse it over and over…there was a string that went around a smaller round cardboard wheel to close it when you put your papers to be delivered to another coworker.