Vintage Vestiges of Your Profession

[Torpedo]

Hello,

I work in Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalonia's authonomous police force. Catalonia is an authonomical community in Spain - more or less comparable to an US State.

Well, when this force was re-created in the 1980's, they took the traditions of historical Mossos d'Esquadra, founded in the XVIII Century as a militia-type security body fighting against bandoleers and the like. The name is also traditional. I would compare it with the retention of such names as Texas Rangers, or State Troopers.

Well, we have a Parade Squad that serves in ceremonial occassions, that is clad with a reenacted oufit recalling those old origins. Actually, it is more an evocation than a real, accurate, reenactment effort, but it is not a bad attempt.

Regards!

 

[Doc Smith]

The beauty of being an engineer is that math has changed very little. I've got a number of engineering texts from the 20-40s that look almost exactly like the ones I bought new in school. I will say I've got one from the turn of the last century that discusses straw and hair as insulation for boilers, so... yeah some things have changed.

The math may not have changed, but the methods for doing it certainly have! Some of my colleagues have had to ban symbolic math packages like Maple or Mathematica from their exams. My exams tend toward more applied problems, so I'm not that worried about my students producing steam-driven derivations, rather than hammering them out by hand.

And then there's this:

Isn't she pretty?

Definitely! The K&E that I keep on my office desk pales in comparison.

I just wish I knew how to really honestly use it and do so well. It's a hard thing to learn in this day and age. No one makes slide rules any more and there isn't much information on using them.

Actually, you can get new-in-box slide rules and manuals at http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/sliderule.html

And, just to bring this back to the sartorial, I've found that an old Fullerton circular slide rule fits very nicely in the right-hand inner pocket of an old Harris tweed jacket. Helps immensely with establishing a junior faculty member's geek cred....

 

[Solid Citizen]

SLIDE rule

That little tool enabled the A-Bomb engineering that ENDED WWII Solid Citizen

 

[Firefyter-Emt]

Well, I make my living as an Auto Damage Appraiser, so I think that every last vestige of vintage has been shredded from my job now. lol

I use a digital camera, to photograph the damage, I then go to my car to write the estimate (via computer data base and real time part pricing and availability, both new and used) Once done, I print it out either to my 12v car printer, my home office printer to mail, or to a digital fax number or e-mail. Photos are uploaded on site and the estimate is uploaded directly into our database before I have even put the car in reverse.

Well, I guess I DO still have to look at the damage come rain, snow, hail or high water. That and I do still use a vintage pen to take notes. [huh]

 

[Tiller]

Well right now I'm going back to college, but I would like to have a "vintage job" on the side. Truth be told I would love to do what Art does as a weekend/side job, but I have no idea how one even goes about apprenticing to be a hat maker/haberdasher.

 

[rumblefish]

In my collection....

Could be on Long Island, NY. Not far from me.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=holbr...T_NQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

 

["Skeet" McD]

Where is "Holbrook" btw.?..

Or, [pace b'rer Rumblefish.... ] it could be in Massachusetts...not far from ME...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holbrook,_Massachusetts

"Skeet"

 

[morgan]

I'm a Boilerman. Not too much has changed except to for water treatment and the quality of the tools. Oh and I'm highly governed by OSHA

Morgan

 

[Mike K.]

I pride myself in being an Audubon Society wildlife warden. Although in today's world my job is primarily land and wildlife management, I follow in the historic footsteps of those who risked (and sometimes sacrificed) their lives for the sake of wildlife conservation.

The way it was...

The way it is...

 

[pretty faythe]

All I have to say is thank goodness that I am not doing my profession way, way back in the day.
I remember back in the apprecticeship for giggles the director liked to read from safety instructional books, etc, that he collected. The one that sticks out the most is from around 1915 or.
Testing voltage with my tongue, ummm, not such a smart thing.
And you really dont want to know what they suggested as an early form of...well, the best thing to say is to test the persons responsiveness after being hurt.....yeahh....
Thank the heavens for voltage testers and other advancements since the start of electricians having jobs!!

 

[59Lark]

Trade handed down from forties.

I am a sewing machine mechanic and salesman,dealer representative for the singer sewing machine company, and our shop is a dinosaur of a shop. We still carry and sell treadle sewing machines and handcrank sewing machines. We still repair any age of sewing machine brought to us the oldest a singer no 3 1870s. The mechanics wear aprons, the workshop is in the cellar and the equipment is very old, but occasional new piece, and we have a cememetry of old machines and parts some dating to the 1880s. We have a website and ship parts and machines all over, we are sending a treadle sewing machine this week to tempe az. I Was trained by a fella with 50 years fixing and selling singer sewing machines and i was trained to call ladies madam, to open doors and answer the phone good morning and how may i help you or be of service. i do not call couples guys. If they are farmers or country peoples i may say folks. We run this shop like a shop of forty or fifty years ago and we still drink coke from little green glass bottles. 59Lark ps the studebaker lark is off the blocks and running.