‘What’s a now obsolete job from history that sounds made up?’ – 23 roles that will stop you from complaining about work forever

13.

‘Pin setter at the bowling alley.’
–LimpSwan6136

14.

‘An elevator operator. My father was one back in the 50’s.’
–YELLOW_TOAD

15.

‘File girls. 1980s and prior. Usually young women who did admin work focused on physically retrieving, putting away and keeping files.

I started office work in the 90s and heard mention of ‘file girls’ in more than one office. Was crazy to me then (the girls part), can only imagine now.’
–MW240z

16.

‘Garden hermits. Rich people hired them to live in grottos on their estate and act wise and ancient.’
–Low_Two_1988

17.

‘In early England, villages would have a person appointed the ‘aleconner’. His job was to drink the beer at each public house, judge its quality and make sure it was being sold at the correct strength and price.

Sometimes they would sit in a puddle of the beer in their leather pants, and judge how much their pants stuck to the bench to check sugar content.’
–zsaleeba

18.

‘Sin eater. Used to be that people thought your soul would linger or be banished to heck if you died unburdened of your sins, so they’d hire someone called a sin eater to sit graveside and eat bread (‘the body’, which had presumably absorbed the sins of the dead) until there was no unfinished business for the departed and they could go on their merry way to heaven.

The sin eater was usually a very poor person, so except for the bit about walking around with the unspoken sins of the dead in their gut and hanging out on a hillside full of decomposing corpses, being a sin eater was a kind of sweet gig that came with money and a meal.’
–Fine-Sherbert-141

19.

‘A water witch. They used to be in the Yellow Pages. My great grandpa couldn’t find water on his land. They drilled many times and found nothing. They hired a witch, and he found water on the first day.

When tested they don’t do any better than anyone. Yet a good witch will find water. My buddy’s grandpa used a witch to find his well. It’s mostly having a good eye and an understanding of the lay of the land and the aquifer, but the sticks make it seem like magic. You have to sell it after all.

If you need to witch a well, you need a good witch, not a charlatan. I’d hire a witch if I needed a well drilled. They aren’t spendy.’
–mostlygray

20.

‘The office typing pool. A room full of women who copy paper documents by re-typing them.’
–Eureka05

21.

‘Barber-surgeon. Shave and a haircut and these gallstones removed, please!’
–oortcloudview

22.

‘Newspaper reader. Most popular in cigar factories and other less noisy industries, these were men paid to read the newspaper aloud to everyone else while they worked. They were paid in tips, but could make very good money doing so, and went out of fashion with the advent of the radio.’
–Braith117

23.

‘My grandfather was a calculator.’
–NetDork

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