Jobs, Services and Companies That are Obsolete that you Miss the Most

[Guest]

Many of us have been loyal to a brand, a service provider or simply have grown to love them. 

 

Is there one of these you had to say farewell to wishing for the opposite?

 

Which jobs, services or companies that have become obsolete that you miss the most?

[Chocolatastic AroAce]

I'm way to young to have experienced it myself...but I wish Milk and egg delivery was still a thing. How cool was that? Every week or so someone would deliver these most basic and useful items right to your door.

[Grimalkin]

Blockbuster and video rental places in general. 

 

I sound like a curmudgeon about it, but there really was more magic in going to pick out a movie and only having a certain group of movies at home. The movies we had on our shelf definitely helped shape who I am and my world view. They were special. 

 

[RoseGoesToYale]

I don't think I was ever alive when this was still a job, but drafter. Like physical drafting where you went to a workshop with huge drawing tables, pens and pencils, french curves, triangles, and every manner of measuring device, and your occupation was to make up official drawings of whatever for your client. Imagine just drawing all day, making up blueprints for infrastructure or putting together landscape/interior design mockups by hand. That'd be my dream job. Unfortunately it's all but completely been replace by CAD.

 

Also real department stores with multiple floors and a complete section for everything, including sewing notions, millinery, cookware, housewares, etc. They were like the Amazon of the 20th century. "Department" stores these days are nothing but clothes/perfume/makeup.

[the great acescape]

I miss Blockbuster, too. I have fond memories of going with my dad and brother to rent VHS tapes. I also miss Media Play - they had tapes, video games, comic books, and toys, and I loved looking at all the anime and manga they had. The company that owned them went bankrupt in 2005.

[mexicanpotato]

I'm vegan now but the fact that bottles of milk where delivered to your door always amazed me as a child

[Lord Jade Cross]

Didnt you start a thread like this one some time ago? Or was it someone else?

 

As for me, I miss the old, dark, with always busted AC, crowded arcades that I seldom had the chance to go to as a kid. It was an entire culture that is lost nowadays

[Guest]

Toys R Us

 

This is how I remember it looking (picture taken in 1996):

[Back to Avalon]

3 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

Didnt you start a thread like this one some time ago? Or was it someone else?

Yes, he did.

 

 

[Rosendust]

Spoiler

Here in my local area, we had a record store called Manifest and I absolutely adored that place, as it had every selection of CD, Vinyl and music you could think of and it smelled like lovely incense! Of course there's Papa Jazz downtown, but I cannot risk going to that area alone. How I wish Manifest existed still!

 

[Starbogen]

Same for Blockbusters and Toys R Us..

I loved being able to go into Blockbusters and getting all the old movies I wanted. Also Borders.. I rarely bought anything but I liked how big the place was and just wandering around in the second floor and browsing and sitting down in a corner to read a bit. 

[Guest]

Well, somehow we still have a FamilyVideo here. It's actually somewhat alive too. 

[Guest]

-It's a dying breed in my city but full service gas stations. 

 

-Arcades. I had to go to Japan and other south east Asian countries to properly experience them. 

 

-Actual cashiers. I have had to adapt to self checkouts but will always prefer the human touch over the mechanical. 

 

I feel so old but even grocery stores that had the carry out service and they would put your purchase in a basket and send it down a conveyor belt. You would get out and it would be ready to go. Am I the only one who absolutely loved this service?

[Blaiddmelyn]

I'm with everyone on Blockbuster. When I was a kid, for a while, my dad got us into a tradition where we'd go to the local Blockbuster. He'd buy a takeaway and my sister and I could each pick a video. The following week, we'd return our videos and get a new one. I remember watching some films that I grew to love and probably would never otherwise have seen.

 

I also liked BHS. More shops do it now but for a while, it was one of the few places which had a dedicated clothing section for short people like me, and actually had a really decent range. Some brands do now have dedicated petite ranges but usually not as big a range, while some shops don't really bother.

[daveb]

32 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

I feel so old but even grocery stores that had the carry out service and they would put your purchase in a basket and send it down a conveyor belt. You would get out and it would be ready to go. Am I the only one who absolutely loved this service?

Never heard of that.

 

I do miss video stores, record/cd stores, and more bookstores (chain, local, used, etc.), and being able to go and browse and come across hidden gems and stuff I didn't know existed. Online shops are fine, if you know what you are looking for, but not very good for browsing or random discoveries or holding something in your own hands to look at, thumb through and examine in detail.

[ben8884]

Blockbusters-in 2012 I was in Chile and saw one. I went in just because. I miss Eaton's too and also Zellers. A LARGE part of my childhood was going to Zellers with my parents. 

[Scooter]

I miss Borders as well, and I got to work at one for a while. I'll also jump on board with the Toys 'R Us nostalgia, especially the late 80s and early 90s, when it still looked and felt like a warehouse. I held my breath every time the Nickelodeon Toy Run came around, and tried to plan my route at my local store in case I ever got lucky enough to win.

 

The Warner Bros. Store was, in my mind, equally as amazing as the early versions of the Disney Store as far as art and collectibles.

 

I also miss Sony Vaio. I know Vaio was technically bought out, but the computers are no longer available to the US. I got a Vaio laptop back in 2012, and it was the best I've ever had. I decided after only 6 months that I would absolutely replace it with another Vaio when the time came. I finally said farewell to that laptop this past May (more out of necessity than anything--it was still fully functional with no real issues). Due to circumstances, I had to go for a Chromebook this time around, and I clearly had no idea how spoiled I was with that previous machine. Despite how old it was, I still got a decent credit for it when I turned it into Best Buy for recycling. Literally the only real complaint I can make about that laptop was the fact that I bought it 6 months too early for the upgrade to Windows 10 to work properly on it (other owners determined that while the upgrade would function, it knocked out the touchpad driver, and trying to get around that was generally deemed not to be worth the effort).

[Back to Avalon]

1 hour ago, KrysLost said:

Well, somehow we still have a FamilyVideo here. It's actually somewhat alive too. 

We did until recently. I don't know how it hung on all this time.

 

11 minutes ago, Scooter said:

I also miss Sony Vaio.

I still have a Sony Vaio desktop computer that still works. I was surprised recently when I discovered that the USB port, which I thought wasn't reading flash drives anymore, still worked, which means the computer is worth keeping. It has some software that I still use occasionally and might not be able to install on newer computers and don't want to pay for again. But don't get me started on the Vaio's music software.

[Guest]

-Black's photography or the ease to buy digital cameras. The fact this is a dying electronic as well. 

 

My phone takes great pictures, but it's not the same as a camera and tripod. 

 

 

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, daveb said:

Never heard of that.

This was huge in my city in the 80's. Giants like Steinberg in the grocery industry offered this in Canada. 

 

Oh. And Zellers. Definitely miss them. They were our version of Target. Ironically enough, taken over by them. 

 

Don't miss Target though. Not because it wasn't good, but because their CEOs thought they would fool canadians with a watered down product. 

[Alawyn-Aebt]

7 hours ago, RoseGoesToYale said:

I don't think I was ever alive when this was still a job, but drafter.

Before you discount manual drafting as a job entirely my grandfather used to do it on occasion until 2017 when he died. He wasn't doing it very officially, but he did do it for people needing to present plans to the planning commission, city council, fire marshal, or health department. He was even able to find somewhere to buy replacement erasers for his bizarrely-shaped plug-in pencil. His drawings did need an architect's signature to be evaluated, but some architects would charge a cheaper price if you could present your own drawings for them to just quickly view then sign. Probably manually drafting is dead in architectural studios, but there is a business of drafting, manual and/or computer, for local clients. 

[daveb]

40 minutes ago, Aebt-Ætheling said:

manual drafting

Drafting class was pretty standard for most boys to take when I was in junior high. I took one or 2 years of it and enjoyed it. There was no computer drafting in those days (that was also the days when only boys were allowed to take shop classes (woodshop, metalshop, drafting, etc.) and only girls were allowed to take home ec classes (cooking, sewing, and whatever else they did) - fortunately that changed at least!) .

[Skycaptain]

Bus conductors, and on a related note Routemaster buses with open platforms at the back. 

 

I'll expand Blockbusters to video stores in general - I lived in a village so the video store was an adjunct to the newsagents. 

 

Whilst electric milk floats are gone, doorstep deliveries still exist here. 

 

Train stations, the platform staff who had to change the painted wooden signs showing where every train was going to. 

[Guest]

The video stores were great. We had a local one that we went to and the owner would be like "this movie is one everyone should see, here, watch it on me" (free rental) with her regular customers. You dont get to interact with someone passionate about movies with RedBox. 

[Ashmedai]

MM those video stores were great. When I was young, around 15 I think, there was a guy I knew that had a video store, but since it was in an area that I usualyl didn't go to, so I didn't visit that one that often. One time I did though was a few days before Shanghai Knights was released on dvd, and he just so happened to let it out to us early

[gisiebob]

insurance, and advert marketing

 

(if only)

[gisiebob]

On 1/8/2020 at 10:42 AM, RoseGoesToYale said:

I don't think I was ever alive when this was still a job, but drafter. Like physical drafting where you went to a workshop with huge drawing tables, pens and pencils, french curves, triangles, and every manner of measuring device, and your occupation was to make up official drawings of whatever for your client. Imagine just drawing all day, making up blueprints for infrastructure or putting together landscape/interior design mockups by hand. That'd be my dream job. Unfortunately it's all but completely been replace by CAD.

although I didn't make it into the field I am very glad to have a class in hand drafting when I was in college for engineering

[Skycaptain]

All the smaller truck manufacturers. Now most trucks in Europe are made by seven companies the roadscape is much less diverse

[Guest]

On January 8, 2020 at 3:06 PM, OptimisticPessimist said:

Toys R Us, no words needed. 

 

Woolworths! Was a great place for music, they always had offers on albums, and they had the best pick & mix. It's still strange to not see it on UK highstreets. 

 

How about that? Toys R Us and Woolworths were here as well, and in the same mall, just in opposite ends. I don't recall if this Woolworths specialized in anything in particular, but it was quite big and had an in-house restaurant.

 

On January 8, 2020 at 6:19 PM, ben8884 said:

Blockbusters-in 2012 I was in Chile and saw one. I went in just because. I miss Eaton's too and also Zellers. A LARGE part of my childhood was going to Zellers with my parents. 

Sears replaced Eaton's in a local mall, then when Sears left the top floor was ripped apart to accommodate a huge Apple store. I used to go to the mall I mentioned previously in which Zellers was the only anchor store with my mom on Saturdays when I was a kid. Sometimes I got Garfield books, sometimes cassette tapes, and I got my first Polaroid in a camera store in the lower level. It was the display unit, came with a shoulder bag and had a film pack in it with two shots left. The building is still there but it's no longer a mall. There's one original set of escalators and an original lift near them; last I saw it the button for the main level was still marked "mall".

 

I miss consumer electronic repair shops, not to mention electronics that were made to be serviced. I also miss Sears, but only because I was able to get my preferred clothing there.

[Scribbles]

Hastings! That was my favorite place in town, always got books, manga, and assorted weird stuff related to my hobbies. Now the only semi-close thing here is Target which works, I guess? Doesn't have the same charm or weirdness to it, though. (Also they were the only store in town that still sold Webkinz!)