The Fall From Grace: 15 Professions That Went From Revered to a Total Joke
Here’s a trip down memory lane: Remember when specific jobs used to be the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees, the ticket to a life of respect and admiration? When a career in these professions meant you were going places, and your mother could proudly brag about you at her weekly bridge club.
Fast forward to today, and it’s a whole different ball game. From being revered, some of these gigs have turned into the punchline of a not-so-funny joke. It’s sure to be a roller coaster of emotions and possibly a reality check as we mention each one. Pass the popcorn, please!
Travel Agents
Once the gatekeepers of global travel, they’re now often supplanted by online booking sites. Who needs an intermediary when you’ve got Google Flights?
Video Store Clerks
In the era of Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, these guys might as well be swapping VHS tapes at a yard sale.
Camera Film Developers
Snap, print, and wait. With the advent of digital photography, their darkroom magic has been lost.
Pager Salespeople
Once a status symbol, pagers are now relics best suited for an episode of “Stranger Things.”
Encyclopedia Salesmen
In the age of Wikipedia, these door-to-door peddlers of knowledge have become a punchline.
Phone Book Printers
Google is the new Yellow Pages. Sorry, guys.
Typewriter Repairmen
Unless you’re a hipster or a budding novelist who’s read too much Hemingway, you probably don’t need one.
Milkmen
What once was a charming neighborhood staple is now essentially a thing of the past. These jobs are no longer common.
Telemarketers
Once the kings and queens of making deals over the phone, they’re now the bane of dinner time everywhere.
Newspaper Printers
With everyone getting their news online, these jobs are dwindling fast.
Fax Machine Technicians
Scan and email, anyone? The fax machine’s heyday seems like a distant memory.
Pay Phone Operators
With the rise of mobile phones, pay phones have become more of a novelty than a necessity.
VCR Repairmen
Don’t get me started on VCRs. A museum exhibition seems like their next logical step.
Horse Carriage Drivers
Once essential for transportation, they’re mostly reserved for romantic city tours and Central Park.
Check-Out Clerks
Self-checkout and online shopping are replacing these once-ubiquitous roles. But even as self-checkout becomes popular, a survey of 1,000 shoppers showed 67% complaining of failures at the self-checkout lane.
“One would expect the self-checkout experience to be flawless. We’re not there at all,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who has researched self-checkout.
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