for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt.
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I often think about my first job. It was in grocery shop.
“That’s…add up in my head…two and eight pence madam, please…tap-tap-tap, ding, rattle-rattle… there’s your change madam, thank you”.
We couldn’t have imagined that one day there’d be checkouts to do it all for us.
The same goes for typing…tap-tap-tap, ding, back, tap-tap-tap…oh no, the ribbon’s run out!
Now it’s…tap-tap-tap, beep…oh no, the cartridge has run out!
Future generation will laugh at what we consider to be modern today…hahaha, they had to do this, had to do that…they even had to work…but I still miss the old days.
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Prod Froggie to visit the squares!
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PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson
Keith's Ramblings 
In my ancient history, I taught clinical enzymology in a teaching hospital. NO calculators allowed for the exam. Only a slide rule. Hilarious when I think about it now.
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Slide rules, I’d forgotten about them!
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There is something to be said about the old stuff. Ask todays “yutes” to multipy 7 X 8 in their head and they look at you askance!
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Why? It’s easy – 55…or 57….or something! Kids today.
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Hahahaha! I purposefully chose one of the easy or fun ones
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I think we might just about be entering the phase where they’re saying “ha-ha, they used to have to work”. Good one.
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So true, the robots are rolling off the assembly line!
Your comment landed in the right place this time, not in the spam bucket! Hooray!
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It’s all been downhill since the invention of the wheel
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It has, and it’s not yet reached the bottom!
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Dear Keith,
My first job was in a Dairy Queen, making sundaes, cones and banana splits. My mother taught me how to count back change. These days it’s a lost art. If the checker doesn’t hit the right button to tell them how much to give back they’re lost.
Yep, your story struck a nerve. Ding!
Shalom,
Rochelle
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That sounded like a nice job!
In my first job we had to add up people’s weekly grocery bills in our head as we gave them one item after another. Then the change…
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lol! I think people will still have to work what ever the era!
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Sadje, I hope so! Work is so fundamentally healthy – however, there are growing numbers of the affluent crowd even now – who do not work – hmmm
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But not everyone is affluent. In fact the divide between have and have nots is widening day by day.
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Sadje, yes. and I was just listening to a sad conversation about that with an angle related to the housing market (although there are numerous examples)
As housing prices keep going up at extremes – it allows those that have, to get more – while those with less cannot get into the market to even get a little.
So 30 years ago – for a long time there were starter homes and that people could still get on one income.
now – not so fast, unless you live in a smaller country town (depends) – or a place less desirable – where someone can buy a starter – and build from there.
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sigh = the rich get richer and the poor have kids (quote from my World Regions teacher in High School)
and modified for today
“the rich get richer and the poor get screwed”
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That is unfortunately the truth world over. Even in poor countries, it’s the same
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yes… and sigh
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😔
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Work, but in a different way perhaps!
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Perhaps- like Jetsons?
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I don’t think we would have imagined people buying groceries in such quantity as we do now either! Delightful listen I had here today.
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I often but things I don’t need, such is the lure of supermarket shelves!
Thanks so much, Jodi.
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For half a dozen items or so, I can usually add them up in my head. It’s priceless to see the cashier’s face when I give them the right money, but sad when they cannot add up the coin denominations to check it.
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I try to do that as well, Di!
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Don’t forget bottles of white out.
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and James, I just saw some “correction pens ” for sale at a thrift store
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Thanks for reminding me, James!
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There’s nothing quite like an old time typewriter, is there.
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Indeed there’s not! They were the days my friend…!
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I liked the sounds of this story. All we can do is try to keep up with the changes. Tracey
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Thanks, Tracey. Somehow, they always seem to be one step ahead!
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Ive reached the age now when I really struggle to take anything in without dumping something else out, the stuff which gets dumped is invariably the more recent. Viva the olden days (which my son keeps reminding me I emerged from like the proverbial swamp.
Good stuff
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Out with the old in with the new is not something I ascribe to either!
Thanks so much.
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and I loved the sound of my pencil sharpener round and round, making that sound
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Me too, I really aught to get myself a new one!
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I don’t mind working but it’s nice to be able to do the kind of work you want to do. Hopefully in this future, we can still do that. 🙂 We’ll see how it goes.
-David
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I agree entirely, David!
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very interesting take on the photo – and I liked the work comment – but I also wonder how smart phones will lool 20 years from now?
I read someone (might have been mac rumors) but they were talking about the life span of iphones and the end is in sight (10 years?) as other options, esp with AI, will be coming soon. I wonder what our current smartphones will look like in 2050?
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Thanks so much, Yvette. I heard somewhere that they’re experimenting with phone devices that are implanted into our teeth, and instead of screens there will be holographic images before our eyes and voices in our ears!
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yikes
and I did see a crime show that had the real-life story of a dentist giving someone a techy implant thing in their teeth – cannot recall much about it – but it sounds very scary to me – hmmm
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“they even had to work” such a relevant statement today. Although, they better not pull the plug on electricity or else they will be stuck and turn to me, the old guy , to do some work.
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That’s true, we could become a sought after bunch!
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Already I am. Did you know that volunteering is not slave labour, but asking a teenager to help is.
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My first job was as a cashier in a grocery store. You had to learn the new sale sheet every week, and you had to punch in the price of each item on a cash register. And count back change, which could be a real challenge when your customer was a little old lady with a little old coin purse into which she had stuffed a few bills and a whole lot of change 🙂
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You as well! Back then our currency pre-decimal. 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to pound! We added the bill up in our head as we went along!
“That’s two pounds, eight and five, please madam”!
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i suppose we must learn to move with the times. nowadays, technology becomes old technology even sooner than we realize. 😊
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Good one! Unfortunately, I believe those days are gone forever.
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Gone, but not forgotten!
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I am terrible at mental math and i am awestruck when i see the ‘illiterate’ vendors and hawkers just add it all up in a jiffy.
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