Flashback to when my work life had a bit more levity to it. I think I still got this bear stashed away somewhere in my basement.
A comment a semi-regular visitor to this blog made about early work life got me to thinking about how much had changed, technology-wise, for the 24+ years (1996-2020) of my state employment.
For starters, when I started working in 1996, if you can believe it, that was my first exposure to computers. Prior to that, I had no such exposure to using a computer, at least since my high school days (1979-83). I'm pretty sure I had a familiarity with Microsoft products in 1996 and zero familiarity with e-mail prior to working for the government.
So if you think about it, I was literally straddling the fence between blissfully living without technology and painfully living with it. So, in no particular order of importance, let me give you a tiny flashback to what my work life was like at the dawn (1998) of the Google empire.
- Netscape was the top dog for search engines, at least prior to Google. There were quite a few others (Dogpile comes to mind) but they quickly disappeared.
- My entire work life ran the M$ gamut starting with Win 6.0 and finishing with Win 10, and yes, the State skipped 8.0, 8.1 and Vista.
- E-mail was Groupwise, for at least a decade. And ListServs were very, very popular in the academic world.
- Voice mail was (and still is) a thing, along with other outdated technology like fax machines (current technology is that you can fax directly to your computer).
- Because smartphones were waaaaaaay in the future, Mapquest was very much a thing, back in my early years. Nothing like printing out directions before going off on a work related trip to some college or public library to get you psyched up for the day. My daughter insists to this day that I had actually performed this task for her when she was a teen in the mid 2010's.
- My first job with the state was at the CT State Library, helping to prepare newspapers for microfilm. Yes, before the concept of digitizing took off (my first job started digitizing in the mid-2000's) there was microfilm. I can absolutely guarantee that I can still rattle off enough minutia about microfilming that will make your brain yearn for speeches from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Yeah, I was JUST. THAT. GOOD.
- Speaking of microfilming, I got to be very good in using bottles of powdered toner for one of the machines. Yes, you read correctly. Back then, one of the machines that we had you were able to make photocopies directly from a reel of microfilm. Note, microfilm will always be a thing, because nowadays, it's a great back up to digitized records and if you're a research library, it's more of a user friendly product than digitized records (at least IMO). Any who, I had to use two different types of toner, and yes, I did have a few accidents over the 8 years of working there.
- And for #8, we actually do not have anything else. By the time I was involuntarily laid-off in 2003, I was firmly entrenched with such nascent technology as Google, Word and Excel (yes, my work life also predated those two programs), discovered the joys of Internet radio and the crap that was AM Radio (talk that is, with Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh being the predominant programs of the day) and the absolute joy that was/is college radio.
When I was a university student in the late 1970s, microfilm was THE advanced technology of the day, lol. I spent hours scrolling through endless microfilm reels while researching. And microfiche was big too. Now I suppose both are only relevant if their original sources have not yet been digitized and uploaded to the internet.
ReplyDeleteInspecting final copies of microfilm before they were to be dispersed both in-house and to those who lent us newspapers to film was one my main job duties for the first 7 years of my state employment.
DeleteIt. Was. Mind. Numbing.
And I sincerely feel your pain.