
Jobs that no longer exist - jitbit
https://imgur.com/gallery/u6Mbi
======
mtmail
In Germany we still have a couple of "Turmwächter" (turm = watchtower of a
church, wächter = watcher) left. Their jobs used to be watching for enemies,
fire and blow a horn to signal the time of day. Some have apartments in the
watchtower. In my town the woman ([http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/bizarre-
berufe-tuermerin-auf-...](http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/bizarre-berufe-
tuermerin-auf-dem-turm-der-lambertikirche-in-muenster-a-938846.html)) took the
position as recently as two years ago, part time job and she has to go up the
stairs every day. Between 21:00 and midnight every half an hour she blows a
horn in all 4 directions. Her predecessor did the job for 70 years and
reported 20 fires. German Wikipedia lists 10 in Germany, Switzerland, Poland,
those are probably the last 10 remaining.
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrmer](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrmer)

~~~
yoo1I
> hose are probably the last 10 remaining.

Towers to watch for wildfires are still in use
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_lookout_tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_lookout_tower)

~~~
kijin
This looks like a job that could be replaced fairly easily with pattern-
recognition software connected to infrared sensors and a satellite uplink. If
a potential wildfire is detected, the system could send a drone to the
location to confirm.

~~~
XaspR8d
True, though having a human posted in remote locations has additional
benefits, like assisting folks who are lost / injured.

------
cstross
Here's another one: _Computer_.

Back before programmable general-purposes computing machinery existed,
computer was a _human job_ description -- a human being who was employed to
perform basic calculation tasks rapidly and accurately.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer)

~~~
yolesaber
That job still exists, except in the very far future, and is known as a
"mentat"

~~~
dave_sullivan
That's kind of the joke though right? In 1965, when Dune was written, computer
was still a human job title and mentats seemed like a totally reasonable far
future extrapolation. Notice in Dune, no AIs, but they did have "family
nukes". Really, Dune's vision of the future was about human augmentation
through drugs (spice) as opposed to digital automation.

~~~
icebraining
AIs do exist in the Dune world, they were simply forbidden after the Butlerian
Jihad. The author didn't extrapolate, he made a deliberate decision to exclude
such devices.

~~~
dave_sullivan
Ha, you're right. I forgot about that, but I even read the first book in the
series about the butlerian jihad that Frank Herbert's son wrote. I should
finish that series... So the thesis was "machines will enslave us but drugs
and religion will set us free"? Because, of course, all fiction should reduce
to a single sentence thesis, otherwise all those words would be a waste...

------
Waterluvian
Whenever I get onto the subject of how robots are taking jobs away from
people, my usual simple argument (when the conversation is only going to be a
minute long) is that refrigeration took many jobs away, such as ice and milk
delivery people.

But I wish I could find a more significant example of some industry that was
huge and is now entirely gone due to modernization.

~~~
lisper
Farmers. In 1850, >70% of people in the U.S. were farmers. Today <2% are.
(Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-
lowest-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-
since-1850-s.html))

~~~
ekianjo
Yet we don't have 70% unemployment.

~~~
lisper
That's true, but that should not lull us into complacency. Some day we may run
out of productive things for unskilled human labor to do, the same way we ran
out of things for horses to do ([http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-
apply](http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply)). Not everyone can
be a software engineer, and even if they could, we probably wouldn't need 7
billion of them.

~~~
ekianjo
Yes, but that also means humans are usually more resourceful than what we can
imagine in the first place. Look back also in the early 1900s where all major
newspapers were proclaiming the end of world and massive famine if we ever
reached 1 billion people on Earth, and look where we are now: virtually no
famines anywhere (except in war zones and in the worst dictatorships, which is
now a minority) and the population is still growing and poverty is decreasing
progressively. This would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.

So, let's not fool ourselves with predictions. We are notoriously bad a
predicting long term trends.

PS: the analogy with horse is wrong in so many ways (because horses are not
humans and cannot adapt like humans) but this would be another topic
altogether.

~~~
lisper
Humans as a species are pretty resourceful, but individual humans often not so
much.

The problem is that throughout human history the demand for unskilled labor
has exceeded the supply, and that has been the foundation of our social
contract: work, and you eat. Don't, and you starve. But some day soon,
technology could make that assumption no longer true, at which point we could
have big problems unless we radically rethink how our society is organized.
_That_ is something we humans have historically not been very good at.

------
planteen
Can we please bring back lectors for open office floor plans?

And you can still get premium milk delivered in the Denver area from Royal
Crest dairy.

~~~
gaius
Interesting fact: Cuban cigars are named thing like Romeo y Julieta or Monte
Christo, because those were the books read aloud as those cigars were being
rolled.

~~~
fierycatnet
Is there a source for this? I don't doubt you but I'd love to read more about
this. That is an interesting fact.

~~~
gaius
I learnt it on a tour of a factory in Cuba!

------
phpnode
The milkman is still a thing in the UK at least, but certainly dwindling.

~~~
matthewking
Came here to say this, its sad really, quite convenient and I miss the noise
of the electric milk float at 4am, always knew that meant it was time to stop
coding and go to bed! Depends where you live though, still heard it in Dorset.

~~~
spitfire
We'll probably start hearing it again as we slowly move to a demand delivery
grocery model.

------
thrusong
I was a film projectionist at several theatres but moved on as everyone
switched to digital. I know all the projection booths in my city are now run
by managers from the first floor office.

~~~
ekianjo
Good find. That is true that most of these jobs are gone now.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
The employers of projectionists were already trying to phase them out by
employing one per N cinemas. The projectionist would have to drive around
starting shows at different cinemas, and there would be no one around to fix a
problem when it came up. Source: a local newspaper article a few decades ago.

------
teej
Near me there's a old duckpin bowling alley that's been refurbished to include
a bar. They definitely employ pinsetters! It's such an interesting experience
to have a human set pins just for you to knock them down.

Modern pinsetters have a different style than those of old.
[https://m.imgur.com/ePXtfSU?r](https://m.imgur.com/ePXtfSU?r)

~~~
pimlottc
As you noted, that's duckpin bowling, which uses differently shaped pins than
"standard" ten pin bowling; shorter yet heavier. The New York Times did a nice
mixed media piece a while ago on the sport and its fading popularity, which in
part is because the additional difficulty in creating a mechanized pinsetter
for this type of pin. There was a successful pinsetter invented, but the
manufacturer went out of business in the 70s and declined the license the
patent to other companies. Now there is a dwindling number of vintage
pinsetting machines left, many of which have been cannibalized for parts to
keep existing machines running.

0: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/sports/duckpin-
bowling.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/sports/duckpin-bowling.html)

~~~
jfroma
We have this in Argentina, at least where I live is called Boliche. I think is
the same game after reading the rules, main difference is that the ball is
smaller and maybe heavier without holes for fingers and you have three per
frame instead of two as in the other bowling . Pin setters are common

------
ekianjo
Scribes/Copiers are completely gone, too. Until printing was invented every
copy of every book had to be done by hand, one by one. That's not a super
recent change, but still not too far in History.

~~~
dredmorbius
The entire medieval bookmaking process, from velum and inks to lettering to
illumination (illustrations) was fascinating. And _extraordinarily_ expensive.

[http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-
di...](http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/how-long-did-it-take-
to-rewrite-the-bible-during-the-early-propagation-of-the-ch)

Figure that a single book was 1/2 to 1/3 a man-year's labour, of rare and
skilled talent. They were more bespoke jewelry than media, and often treated
as such.

If you think about the falling costs, and increased access, to information
over the span of centuries, it's staggering.

------
rectang
I used to work in a record store (well, CD store) in the 90s. It was fun but
times change!

I liked the job in part because I got introduced to a lot of new music. But
with the internet, it is _so_ much easier to discover new music than it was,
even for a record store employee.

~~~
neonnoodle
Another former record store employee here. I disagree about music discovery
being easier now. I find I got much better recommendations from other music
nerds than I tend to get from algorithms. The depth and nuance of micro-nano-
pico genres is something that hasn't really been well replaced by machine
learning IMO.

I have a Google Play music subscription and its recommendations are pretty
consistently bad. I don't get it. I have given it all my music and it monitors
how often I listen to every song. Why can't it figure out what types of hooks
I like? The human-curated playlists are almost always better; even if I don't
like every choice, there's still some ineffable spark of a single human
personality that gives unity to the selections.

~~~
pmyjavec
Same, the steaming music service has heen frustraing for me, my music goes
missing due to license changes etc.

I'm thinking about at least relying on keeping my own digital library again.
Also, have to agree about the music stores, they were and are good fun. I say
that as they seem to be making a comeback.

------
neonnoodle
Here are some more (in the US, at least)

Travel agent

Door to door salesman

Typist

Typesetter/Linotype operator

Telegraph operator

Ice and coal delivery

Appliance repairman

Then there are the jobs that just got consolidated out of widespread
existence. They still exist but in very limited form. These are jobs that used
to be regional until the market drifted toward economies of scale:

Radio host

Newspaper reporter/editor/cartoonist

Greengrocer

Bookseller

~~~
k__
I have a travel agent in my street. Here in Germany they are omnipresent. But
when I count how many people on Tinder got "Traveling" as their only hobby, I
can see why.

We had door to door salesmen back when I was young (15-20 years ago), they
sold vacuum cleaners for Vorwerk or Kirby. High end systems, very expensive
and they showed them at your home, my mother bought 2, so it worked haha. Then
there are salesmen that sell stuff like scented candles, Tupperware, Dildos
etc. pp. which throw tiny parties for their sales events at customers
livingrooms. Not exactly door to door salesmen, but they visit customers at
home to sell them things.

2009 I worked in an HR office (public service) where two typists worked,
people recoreded letters all the time and they typed them with headphones on.
I don't know if they still work there.

A friend of mine lives in Berlin and heats with coal. She says many flats in
the east of Berlin are still heated with those coal ovens. Sometimes she buys
the coal at the store and sometimes she gets deliveries.

Also here are regular markets with greengrocers and one of them even drives
through my street once a week and sells from a truck. He has a bell and yells
stuff like "POTATOOOOOS. FRESH APPLES AND CARROOOOTS" etc.

And a friend of mine works as a bookseller.

------
eatbitseveryday
I think a modern version of a grocery delivery person would be valuable, but
not to deliver food from nearby stores, but instead from nearby farms. It
wouldn't need to be everyday, perhaps weekly. That keeps us using locally
grown foods.

~~~
tajen
We actually have this in many developed places, albeit only for vegetables.
Urban people subscribe to an "organic farm coop" and receive a set of season
vegetables per week. They don't have much choice, but the upsides are:

\- No intermediary/supermarket involved: Margins are fully paid to the
producer who can either get a decent pay, work less or pay better materials,

\- Vegetables are ripe, but needn't be nice, filtered or advertised in a fancy
packing,

\- Delivery at the reception of your company,

\- The producer has forseeable recurrent revenue, just like developers for
cloud services.

I've seen this in 2 French cities and in Sydney, so I bet it exists in San
Francisco and most major cities.

~~~
cowsandmilk
Yep, there are at least a dozen "Community-supported agriculture"
organizations in SF that will deliver veggies weekly. And in Boston. And in
most major cities in the US and many smaller ones as well. You buy shares or a
subscription (different places use different terms) and you get a portion of
what the farm produces.

------
OJFord
Why on Earth is the milkman on that list?

I stuck up skittles at a local government members' club just a decade ago too;
I would assume that's still happening. It's not common, but some pubs still
have skittle alleys - and someone's got to stick up!

~~~
bobbytherobot
Because milkmen don't exists anymore - at least not in the U.S. or Canada.
Houses were built with little doors from the outside into a chillbox for the
milkman to directly place the milk inside.

~~~
wldcordeiro
They're not completely gone. Here in Utah the Winder Dairy company still does
milk and other dairy product delivery to the home. Maybe it's not exactly the
same with a little door and whatnot but there's still a person delivering milk
(among other things.)

------
galfarragem
Lamplighters are not extinct yet. They still exist in Poland at least
(Wroclaw).

~~~
ldjb
We have a handful of them in London, too:
[https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/25/londons-
last...](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/25/londons-last-gas-
street-lamps)

------
animex
Rat Catcher (dubbed the Rat Patrol here) still exists in one place in the
world: Alberta, Canada. I think we're one of the only places with nearly zero
Norway Rat Population.

[http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/All/agd...](http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/All/agdex3441)

~~~
Someone
Technically, they aren't rats, but "muskrat catcher" is a profession in parts
of Europe.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat#In_human_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat#In_human_history):

 _" In some European countries, such as Belgium, France, and the Netherlands,
the muskrat is considered an invasive pest, as its burrowing damages the dikes
and levees on which these low-lying countries depend for protection from
flooding. In those countries, it is trapped, poisoned, and hunted to attempt
to keep the population down"_

------
pimlottc
Another one from the article recently posted on HN: library custodian. In the
days of coal furnaces, many libraries had live-in apartments for the
custodians who were tasked to keep the furnace going and generally look after
the building.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12701847](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12701847)

------
bryanlarsen
Rat catchers definitely still exist, they're employed by farming communities.
Usually not a full time job.

~~~
ekianjo
And they also have been replaced by Exterminators, who take care of all sorts
of "pests" and insects usually with poisons or traps.

~~~
CydeWeys
Poison and traps were in wide use at the time of the photos in question and
had been for some time.

The only reason that "ratcatcher" is a job that no longer exists is because it
changed names to "exterminator", the same way that "secretary" no longer
exists as a job and is now called "administrative assistant". Preferred titles
have changed over time, but the basic job of killing rats absolutely still
exists.

~~~
__s
My mother's a secretary

------
andrewvijay
Expecting to see in the future: Coders - men and women writing code that would
work in a computer before the computers figured they'd be better off writing
code by themselves. :D

~~~
meira
Computers will not write code by themselves. Someone else's code will be so
Great that a lot of people will think it's intelligence by its own, but it
will still be someone else's code.

~~~
ekianjo
In the very long run if we can reproduce human intelligence in a machine,
maybe this will become a reality, but we are probably far, far away from it.
(and further than we think we are).

~~~
andrewvijay
Yeah may be but who knows what the future holds!!

------
ianopolous
The lamp lighter job still exists in Wroclaw:
[https://www.inyourpocket.com/wroclaw/The-Wroclaw-
Lamplighter...](https://www.inyourpocket.com/wroclaw/The-Wroclaw-
Lamplighter_73110f)

------
ekianjo
A couple more:

\- luggage porters in train stations and the like. It used to be a whole
business for voyagers who could afford it.

\- shoeshiners: yes they still do exist in some poorer countries, but by large
they have disappeared (for numerous reasons).

~~~
bobbytherobot
They are still around, but far less than they use to be. I remember as a kid
you would find a shoe shine guy setup in the lobby of most buildings fill with
professionally dressed people.

Certainly work place attire has become more casual across the board, but there
are still places where people dress up like lawyers. I find them still in
train stations where there is a large enough traffic of people to support it.
It goes to illustrate that fewer people are getting their shoes shined when a
shoe shiner requires half the workforce in a city to pass them by instead of
just occupants of a single building.

It is perhaps that shoes are simply more disposable than they were before.

------
ranprieur
Some of those jobs look more fun than any jobs I could get now.

------
ekianjo
> body snatchers

Were they actually stealing bodies? Was that something official or done in
secret?

~~~
yoo1I
This was highly illegal and frowned upon in polite society, but doctors needed
the body parts to study anatomy and paid for them.

By chance I've recently read Dicken's "A Tale of Two Cities", which uses the
banker's messenger secretly moonlighting as such a resurrectionist digging up
bodies at night, as a plot device. Quite a fun read.

~~~
CM30
And in addition to the body snatching, we also had serial killers who flat out
murdered people to sell their bodies to medical schools. See, Burke and Hare.

------
feborges
I wonder, what other jobs no longer exist?

~~~
ctz
Computers is one job that comes to mind (as in human computer, one who
computes).

------
dwaltrip
V

