The United States is the land of opportunity. There are more jobs for people to do than you can possibly imagine. And with the advances in technology, there are even more jobs for people to do. Well, actually, that's not really true. See, with the advances in technology, there are a lot of old jobs that are pretty much disappearing if not gone altogether. We're going to take a look at a few of those vanishing dinosaurs in this article. One job that is almost non existent these days is the job of the shoe salesman, at least in the traditional sense. Today with stores like Pay Less popping up all over there really is no need for shoe salesmen anymore. The reason is because with the new style of shoe store, shoes are now openly on display, not just display pairs. You simply go to the rack, pick out the shoe you want and if it fits and you like it, you bring it up to the cashier and pay for it. No need for a salesman. Now those Married With Children episodes become even that much more pathetic. Another job that has gone the way of the dinosaur is the milk man. Remember how back in the 60s you used to get your milk delivered right to your door in real glass milk bottles. Well, not only have the milk man jobs vanished but the glass bottles have disappeared as well, not replaced either by paper cartons or plastic jugs. There are still a few dairies sprinkled here and there that deliver milk to your door, but you have to go out hunting for them. Another job that is almost gone is the Good Humor Man. Back in the 50s and 60s you couldn't get Good Humor ice cream in stores. The only way was by looking out for that famous Good Humor truck. Well, those trucks are long gone and Good Humor ice cream can now be found in your local supermarket. Of course you can't get all the different varieties that they used to sell, but you can get a few. It's better than nothing. Even tech jobs that were around 20 years ago have vanished. In the early days of computers when programs were typed up on punch cards we were in desperate need of keypunch operators. Today, with programs being able to be typed in directly into the computer by the programmer himself, keypunch operators are no longer needed. While the skill itself is still somewhat in demand for data entry, that particular job itself is gone. Many repair jobs such as for transistor radios are no longer needed because the radios today are so cheap, it costs more to fix them than it does to buy a new one. So people just throw away their old radios and buy new ones. So even many tech repair jobs are vanishing because the cost of making these things today are so cheap. No doubt as time moves on, more and more jobs will be gone. Let's just hope that they're replaced by jobs that your average person can actually do without a degree in advanced calculus. |
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