6/23/2023 Question of the day

[petrea_mitchell]

Typewriter Day: Are you old enough that you remember using typewriters in school/university/for work? Is there anything about typewriters that you kind of miss?

Old enough that I used them as a teenager. I did love the feel of typing on an IBM Selectric... not enough that I'd want to go back from electronic writing, mind you.

Comments

[kevin_standlee]

When I started high school in 1979, I signed up for a typing class because I could see that being able to type was going to be very important. I unfortunately broke my right arm a few weeks into my first year of high school, which affected my ability to learn typing; however, using a computer was very important because I had to do most of my homework with a typewriter, typing with my left hand hunt-and-peck, because I'm right handed and couldn't easily complete assignments otherwise. (The four weeks I was in a cast made test taking terribly difficult, as it was a massive chore to write anything that was legible.)

I ended up taking two semesters of typing, and my teacher must have thought well of me, because he sent me as one of my school's participants to the Inyo County Schools typing contest in Independence, the county seat. I didn't place, but I was happy to have been nominated.

Being a good typist (I tested at 70 words per minute) led to my current career, because in November 1994, when I was out of work and taking temp jobs, I took a three-day data-entry job at a small logistics-management company in Menlo Park. But rather than just typing away (on a computer) entering the material they had, I spotted how repetitive it was, automated it with macros, and finished the three-day job in two days. While that cut my pay, it also impressed them so much that they brought me back in a few days later. I never left! After I worked through the temp job period (like most such jobs, they had to keep me employed through the agency for a minimum period before they could hire me), they hired me as first a "casual" (no benefits) employee and then as a permanent employee as a junior logistics analyst. 27 years later, I'm still employed (as a senior solutions engineer, a substantially higher position) by the same legal entity, which started as Menlo Logistics, has changed names many times, and is now GXO Worldwide Logistics.

(I think there may be one other person who worked at the Menlo Park headquarters who is still employed by the current company, but I'll be surprised if there is more than one.)