Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[LizzieMaine]

I was watching a videotape of a baseball broadcast from the summer of 1969 last night, and the announcer was, as announcers did in those days, reading birthday announcements sent in by fans. He noted that this particular fan, from some small town in Rhode Island or somewhere, was celebrating his hundredth birthday as he watched the game that afternoon. That kind of startled me for a moment -- a man born four years after the Civil War, during the presidency of U. S. Grant, was sitting in his living room watching the Red Sox get their backsides handed to them by Oakland. And there's a good chance, that I, myself, as a six year old, was sitting in my own living room at that same moment watching that same broadcast.

 

[GHT]

And M*A*S*H !!!

And MASH? Wow you must be seriously old!

 

[Stearmen]

Every one is talking about the last episode of different TV shows. As far as I can remember, back in the 50s through the 70s, shows did not have big final episodes, they were on one week, gone the next. Was there a final close the story wrap it up episode of I Love Lucy or Gun Smoke?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Usually programs in those days didn't know they were cancelled until it was too late to go to the trouble of making a "finale." The idea of a big finale episode really caught on after MASH ended in 1983 -- that episode became the single-highest-rated episode of a regular series of all time, a record which still stands, and given the way television audiences are fragmented now, it'll probably never be broken.

Occasionally radio serials would make an effort to wind up outstanding storylines and give the characters a satisfying resolution, but more often they'd just be cut off mid-story. It was all disposable product as far as networks and sponsors were concerned, so nobody particularly cared except, possibly, the listeners.

 

[JimWagner]

When I learned electronics tubes were in general use and transisters were just starting to become common. Printed circuits were leading edge. Now there are hardly any relaceable components in most devices and you need a microscope to see what is there.

So I became a mainframe systems programmer when computers and the rooms to house them took up thousands of square feet. My cell phone has more pure computing power and memory capacity than the largest mainframe computer I ever worked on.

Point is, these days you can become obsolete in multiple careers.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Series-finals:

Might get even better than this?:

The trial never ends...

Unknown possibilities...

 

[MisterCairo]

And MASH? Wow you must be seriously old!

My point exactly!!!!



(48 and counting...)

 

[MisterCairo]

Speaking of generations that seem outside the norm, I'm 48, and most of my demographic had grandparents who fought or otherwise suppported the Second World War effort.

The frustration while I was a kid at trying to prove to my friends that my father was a war veteran still makes me shake my head in wonder. He was born in December 1920, was 46 and a half when I was born to his second wife (who in turn was fourteen years his junior), and I had a half brother who was about 18 years older and one 16 years older.

My eldest brother was born in October.

1949.

He'd be 66 now if he hadn't died in a motorbike accident at 22. When I was five. My "big" brother really is that, a veritable Santa Claus at 64. He'll be collecting his Canada Pension at the end of next month when he turns the big 6-5. Fortunately I have to wait seventeen more years!

My dad died at 87 in 2008. His father was born in 1898, but he abandoned the family when my dad was a baby, so the patriarch who helped raise my dad was his mother's father, my great grandad.

He was born in Baghad. In 1854.

People ask me why I'm somewhat strict and resolute in my ways and ideas. 1967. Raised (in part) by 1920 (1934 for my mum!). In turn raised by 1854. Only three generations, but 113 years separating the births.

 

[GHT]

Every one is talking about the last episode of different TV shows. As far as I can remember, back in the 50s through the 70s, shows did not have big final episodes, they were on one week, gone the next.

In the 50's, there was a popular Western come soap opera called Wagon Train, it always seemed to be there, I don't remember it just disappearing. What I do remember though, was how the program took, some might say lifted, a popular novel and reworked it. One such episode was that of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights.' It was the talk of our class the next day, reason being, we were at that moment, reading Wuthering Heights and although I can't remember the Wagon Train episode now, it did, at the time help a good deal of young schoolboys get a better than average grade in their end of term exam marks.

 

[Fading Fast]

When I learned electronics tubes were in general use and transisters were just starting to become common. Printed circuits were leading edge. Now there are hardly any relaceable components in most devices and you need a microscope to see what is there.

So I became a mainframe systems programmer when computers and the rooms to house them took up thousands of square feet. My cell phone has more pure computing power and memory capacity than the largest mainframe computer I ever worked on.

Point is, these days you can become obsolete in multiple careers.

I started as a trader on Wall Street in '85 with one hard-wired computer screen where you could change pages to see prices, but that was about it. All trading was done over the phone and I kept track of my technical analysis and trades on pads. By the early '90s, my screens were somewhat interactive, I was charting on a computer, but trades were still over the phone. Many traders couldn't adapt to these changes and were pushed out.

By the late '90s, my screens were fully interactive, trading was half on the phone / half on electronic systems and some of the basic trading was already being done by machines as was some of the technical analysis. This pushed more traders out of the game. Now, trading is almost 100% electronic and many trades are algorithmic without any human involvement - needless to say, there are probably 90% or so less traders per volume.

I am still in the business - still trading and managing money - but my job, the mental skills needed and the mindset and interaction is so different that it has almost no relation to what I was doing in '85. There was a study done several years ago that showed that the average career length of a trader was seven years and the theme of the article was that market burnout did it. I think that is part of it as the pressure can be intense, but the article missed that the technology changes completely changed the skill set and mental resources necessary to succeed.

Similar to your point, in one career over 30 years, you could become obsolete several times if you don't completely relearn your job, adapt to the new requirements and, hopefully, do so better than others that are younger and more acclimated to the new technology.

Job security - if it ever did - no longer exists as the skills necessary to succeed for a particular job change so rapidly that - even if your job isn't eliminated by technology, or shipped overseas, or destroyed by industry consolidation - your ability to keep your job is at risk to your ability to learn completely knew skills and approaches to the "same" job you had before.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I started in radio in 1982, nearly all stations were locally-owned and operated, and programmed with live local announcers, local news, and locally-produced features. That first station used equipment dating mostly to the 1940s and 1950s. Music was played from records on turntables, and the few syndicated programs the station carried came on records. Commercials were produced on reel-to-reel tape and were edited by hand-cutting the tape with a razor blade at marks made by a china pencil, and were then dubbed for air use to "carts," which were special short-loop tape cartridges similar to an 8-track and which were played over the air on a "cart machine." I wrote all my copy on a manual typewriter, and recorded actuality sound with a portable cassette recorder -- the most modern piece of equipment in the station. "Traffic," the process of actually slotting program material into the daily schedule, was handled with a typed program log.

This was still the case when I left radio in 1997. But in the years since the entire structure of the business has changed. Deregulation in the '90s decimated local broadcasting -- nearly all stations are now owned by a few corporations, and programmed remotely, using "voice tracked" announcers and automated music programmed via satellite, all of this run via a sophisticated computer program. There are no records anymore. There are no reels of tape or carts. Local commercials are produced with sound-editing software, and slotted automatically into the staiton schedule. The only thing that hasn't been automated is the sales department.

The business is utterly unrecognizable to me now. I'm glad I got out of it when I did, because I could see what was coming and I wanted no part of it.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^^ To highlight some similarities. In '82 when I started, payroll was done on punchcards on a '60s (maybe '50s) era IBM mainframe, confirmations were written by hand, bond data showing monthly changes were sent over from the transfer agent (the industry wide record keeper) on microfiche and trade slips were transferred internally by a combination of pneumatic tubes (an absolute awesome system to see in action) and electric belts (high speed, narrow and long versions of how groceries are moved forward at the register today). Now it is all automated with most of it done without human interaction.

Edit add - I started as a summer replacement (that's what they called them in '82 as the fancy summer "intern" thing came later when everything experience title inflation) in '82. That is why I noted starting in '82 here and '85 above - I was a summer worker for three years starting in '82 and, then, began full time in '85.

 

[Fading Fast]

And to tie this back to the Golden Era a bit, back in '82, the senior people in the industry who were in their 40s, 50s and 60s had started in the '40s, '50s or '60s and had seen in their careers very, very gradual change and very small technology change (not paradigm shifting, but usually, something that helped a bit) and were completely unprepared for the tsunami of technology change that was, in the next ten to twenty years going to completely remake the business to its core. If they were old enough, then they retired as it the business became foreign to them; otherwise, they adapted or were pushed out. I often think about how different their career experiences were - business model, industry structure and technology changes were slow and evolutionary - to ours.

 

[Bolero]

I miss the Moral Clarity of the 1940's-50's and I am very Disturbed by the eventual Societal breakdown that began & followed the 1960's & continues on even today...

 

[tonyb]

My mother was reasonably healthy until she hit her seventies, but then she started to experience a lot of internal problems -- she has no trouble walking, seeing, hearing, or mouthing off, but her internal systems seem to be breaking down like an old car breaks down. No catastrophic failures, just a steady deterioration, and it's wearing on her terribly. That, along with being forced to stop working as a result of these problems, has really diminished her, especially over the past year. She's 76 now, but I don't think she'll make it to 80, and I don't think she particularly wants to.

My dear old ma turned 81 a couple of weeks ago, during a visit here. I had last seen here in late June, when I flew back for a final get-together with the old man, her husband, who died (peacefully, pretty much) in August, leaving her a widow for the second time.

She's still about as sharp as she was decades back, thank goodness, but there's no denying she is getting to be a high-mileage unit. She's noticeably frailer than she was back in the summer. On spotting that stooped old woman through the window glass at the airport I knew it was her, but for a brief moment I resisted believing it.

The routine now is to drop her off at the door and then park the car. She prefers to be the one pushing the shopping cart, as it gives her something to lean against.

She was married a few weeks before her 18th birthday. She had three babies and was widowed before her 22nd. She remained married to her second husband despite his physical abuse and profligate spending and multiple bankruptcies and blatant philandering. She survived a bout with cancer of the cervix 30-some years ago (the doctors took the entire works, and she was pleased to be rid of it) and a heart attack in more recent years. A bypass surgery restored some of her lost stamina, for a while.

My hope is that she remains in her pleasant little house with the well-tended grounds (she hires out the yard work these days) with the nice views in the pretty little resort community where she has lived for the past 20-plus years, where she serves as president of the local senior center (the center's new building came about in no small part through her efforts) and manages its thrift shop. My sister lives in the same town, as do a couple of my sister's kids, and my sister's kid's kids. And when the inevitable comes to pass, I hope it makes its appearance in the dead of night, when she is fast asleep. I hope that the pictures in her mind are of the happier times of her childhood, of the stories she has told of the house on the creek on the outskirts of town, which supplied fish and water for the large vegetable garden. And where she had her mutt, Blackie, who followed her everywhere she went.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The normal way of things, we can't prevent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_theory

But the secondary sector finally was producing computed automatization, so tertiary civilization didn't got rich of jobs and the opposite happens, still today. No more reasons, to bring childs to the world. They are dispensable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1401

 

[Zombie_61]

My dear old ma turned 81 a couple of weeks ago...

I really enjoyed reading this. Your "dear old ma" may not be rich or famous, but the story of her life is every bit as interesting as anyone else's.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I miss the Moral Clarity of the 1940's-50's and I am very Disturbed by the eventual Societal breakdown that began & followed the 1960's & continues on even today...

The more that one studies history, the more one realizes that "moral clarity," at least in a societal sense, never existed. Improved communication has forced more honesty, and the more knowledgeable one becomes, the more one realizes that past which we are inclined to view through rose colored glasses, never existed either.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The last episode of "MASH"? I saw the original film in 1970 and I watched it while sitting on the mud at an outdoor GI theater in a place called Long Binh in what was then still the Republic of South Vietnam. It was very controversial at the time because the Army thought it was anti-military and at first weren't going to allow it in military theaters, but there was a big fuss in Congress and they relented. We loved it. The "theater"only had a single projector so after each reel we had to wait a few minutes while the new reel was loaded.

 

[Bolero]

The more that one studies history, the more one realizes that "moral clarity," at least in a societal sense, never existed. Improved communication has forced more honesty, and the more knowledgeable one becomes, the more one realizes that past which we are inclined to view through rose colored glasses, never existed either.

I consider that a very sad analyalization of recent history and am disappointed that you see it that way...FWIW