Well, isn't Foodlovers a repository for legal typists et al (including moi)!

I can relate to pretty much all of the above. I remember when we got our first photocopier except they tended to be called xerox machines initially, because so many of them were Xerox brand (like "Thermos" for vacuum flasks and the banned "Gladwrap" for cling film) and we used to say things like "I'm just going to xerox this letter".

Then in 1978 I got chosen to be plonked in front of one of these [blogs.loc.gov]
and given the manual to work through. And here we are...

Coming to it from another side, I was in a law firm as an author at the time when IBM Golfballs were cutting edge, soon to be supplanted by Mag-Card word processing. I was trained to dictate every item of format, grammar and punctuation and was for the first few years terrified of the secretaries, who were relentlessly critical and derisive of all authors' punctuation and syntax. One of my proudest achievements was to be awarded the Dictator of the Month prize.

Interesting TPANDAV, you had every right to be proud. I don't think we were ever derisive as I think our respect for the bosses (in a very small rural firm) over-rode that, it was more frustration when time was of the essence and to be held up over words we needed to try to fathom out was annoying. In the law firm I worked for, Dictaphone 'do's and don'ts' was something neither bosses had any training on.......... it was just plug it in and go for it holus bolus. The typed material we returned back to the bosses in official letter or document form after a session on the Dictaphone was enough testament for the bosses to learn what and where they needed to improve on if and when, initially, we got it all wrong.

And then there was the post: We always seemed to be racing against time to get the mail typed, signed, into the envelopes, stamped, and up to the post office before the mail van took it away. In those days the mail was collected from the post office 3 times a day - something like 10 or 11 a.m., 3p.m. and 5 p.m. Often we would get to the PO only just in time to catch the mail and you didn't dare tell the bosses if you missed it.........

On photocopiers: our first b&w photocopier needed time to heat up every time before it could be used for a run of photocopying and it seemed to take an age to copy and print one page, let along a document of 25 pages, one page manually placed at a time - there was no automatic feed system! Sometimes a photocopy would come out completely black or so dark you could barely read the print and we'd need to play around with the machine to lighten the background. The rubbish bin was again our friend! At least the photocopyier was a boon to us and how it worked was what it was and we had no idea of where technology would be heading in the future.

Lorna, when I did shorthand, our bosses still dictated where and when they wanted paragraphs, indentions, underlines, etc. so that side of it really wasn't any different to listening to a Dictaphone (for me anyway), but yes, you could tell how long a letter would be.
Regards,
Dawn.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 04:55AM by Dawn.

I arrived in NZ on 31 August 1967 and by the end of September I had a job at Hawkins Construction as a shorthand typist. I caused a huge laugh in the manager's office a couple of months later. I had taken down a 'thank you' letter to one of the manager's most valuable clients and a couple of words had me puzzled, but I typed it anyway. When I took the completed letter in to the manager, before handing it over I said 'could I ask a question, please? What is a liquid chair?' He roared with laughter. His Kiwi accent had got me! It should have been 'thank you for the liquid cheer'!