You can't make this stuff up: Crazy stories ripped from the headlines

[Bad Bob]

Same here, met a lot of girls, but failed the course.

We did not fail. It was a different form of Social Studies. Suspect that we both passed that one.

 

[Andy Mink]

The curriculum has changed since those days. I was in public school at the same time as you and they would not let guys take typing class we had to take drafting and shop. On the other side they would not let girls take shop they had to take typing and home economics (cooking and sewing).

I was in HS in the late 70s/early 80s. I took typing, home ec (at least the cooking part), and had wood and metal shop in middle school.

 

[Andy Mink]

That was where all the girls were.

Nah, that was choir and band. Majorettes, flag girls, flute and clarinet players, sopranos, and altos!

 

[noncrazycanuck]

cooking classes weren't bad either

 

[James]

Loved typing class in the late 60's. That was where all the girls were.
Can't say that I learned a lot about typing though.

Reminds me of Richard Feynman talking about learning Spanish as he wants to go to South America. He’s a young professor at Cornell and looks like a student. So he’s going to sign up for Spanish, but then sees this pretty girl going to the Portuguese class. He thinks, well Brazil is in South America, I’ll learn that! But in going to do it, he talks himself out of it thinking that’s a dumb reason, so he goes back to his original intent. Some time later, he gets a job in South America, in Brazil!

 

[John Webb]

Same here, met a lot of girls, but failed the course. (typing)

In college Drafting the prof did not like my writing. My grades were initially a B then rapidly headed to D. Then time for the Final. Sweating big time as I expected an F. He never showed up to give the test. They averaged grades used mostly the midterm so I passed ! ! ! Found out months later he stopped at a bar instead !

 

[Uncle-A]

Yikes! Taking typing was one of the most useful things I did in HS.

With out a doubt typing is so important now, you are much younger than I and the curriculum has evolved since my day. Not all school districts were as strict as mine.

 

[Uncle-A]

Loved typing class in the late 60's. That was where all the girls were.
Can't say that I learned a lot about typing though.

This is why my district didn't let guys take typing.

 

[Uncle-A]

I took typing and dictation in HS. When I was in college I ended up getting a job in the records office, typing records into the computer (1984-85) They tested me for typing speed mid year and it came in the high 90s.
There is something about typing names, names of classes, digits and dots (.) for 4 hrs a day over a year that makes you get really quick and accurate, which is a requirement in a college records office.

Edit to add, its probably closer to 50-60 now.

I never got good with dictation.

90 wpm is very good and even the 50 - 60 wpm today is still respectable. One of the classes I taught had a keyboarding requirement, and the curriculum suggested that grade 6 should do 30 wpm, grade 7 do 40 wpm and grade 8 do 50 wpm. Very few of the kids got to that level because they were so use to typing with their thumbs on their phones.

 

[Uncle-A]

When people talk about dictation, back in the day it was called Short Hand and the best could do it very fast. Some modified it and only they could read it correctly. Probably for a little job security.

 

[James]

Janitor who shut off lab freezer due to 'annoying' alarms ruined decades of research, college claims in suit

More than 20 years of research was ruined at an upstate New York university when a janitor shut off a freezer emitting “annoying alarms,” a suit says

www.usatoday.com

 

[chilehed]

Reminds me of Richard Feynman talking about learning Spanish as he wants to go to South America. He’s a young professor at Cornell and looks like a student. So he’s going to sign up for Spanish, but then sees this pretty girl going to the Portuguese class. He thinks, well Brazil is in South America, I’ll learn that! But in going to do it, he talks himself out of it thinking that’s a dumb reason, so he goes back to his original intent. Some time later, he gets a job in South America, in Brazil!

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

 

[Jim Kenney]

More trivia about typing...
-I had some sort of brief training in typing in HS around 1970. I think it was for just a partial semester, possibly rotated with a health/PE class. Later around 1998 at a meeting on local education I met the lady who taught me typing in HS. She had become superintendent of the school district in my region!
-In 1976-77 I applied for numerous US Govt jobs. I had a college degree (Geography major), but a "professional" job offer was slow to come. I was willing to take any kind of US Govt job just to get my foot in the door, so I took a night class in typing hoping to get selected for an administrative position. I got up to 40 words per minute with 0-2 mistakes. I thought that was lightening fast
-I eventually got a "professional" USG job in Sep 1977 that involved Geography/mapping. Later I worked primarily as a Defense policy/regulatory wonk until fully retiring in 2019. In the mid 1980s I worked in the Pentagon. I drafted hand written reports all day and turned them over to a small pool of typists who entered my scribbling in a crude computer data base to be printed and/or forwarded to another agency. Later I'd do my own typing for entering info in computers. Like many baby boomers my white collar career encompassed the full transition from virtually a zero requirement for typing to typing all day long by the mid-late 1990s. I was very glad I took those early typing classes.

 

[François Pugh]

In college Drafting the prof did not like my writing. My grades were initially a B then rapidly headed to D. Then time for the Final. Sweating big time as I expected an F. He never showed up to give the test. They averaged grades used mostly the midterm so I passed ! ! ! Found out months later he stopped at a bar instead !

I had "poor lettering" on every drafting assignment (Engineering Drawing). I swear the marker must have been getting a kick-back form the bookstore for every stencil set sold. Alas, I could not afford the lettering set.

 

[RobSN]

... and nowadays one can "type" at 80-100 words a minute using "dictation" using Dragon Naturally Speaking. You have to teach it to learn your voice, whatever the adverts say, but once you have done so, it can go REALLY fast. I have to say, though, that there were some extraordinary errors at first and it made me wonder whether Nuance's default files were partially developed in a part of California where the so-called Adult Industry is located: some of the first transcripts of innocuous phrases were positively pornographic!!!

 

[Tricia]

90 wpm is very good and even the 50 - 60 wpm today is still respectable. One of the classes I taught had a keyboarding requirement, and the curriculum suggested that grade 6 should do 30 wpm, grade 7 do 40 wpm and grade 8 do 50 wpm. Very few of the kids got to that level because they were so use to typing with their thumbs on their phones.

The only time I typed that well(fast) was when I was working in the records office.
Typing college records with all the letters, characters, numbers, etc...for at least 4 hrs 5 days a week and having to meet quotas honed that for me.
You don't want a student climbing down your neck because you made a mistake that affected their GPA.

As I said, up thread, I'm probably more like 40-50 now.

I have a friend who does coding at a hospital who is an extremely fast and accurate typist

 

[Sibhusky]

In college Drafting the prof did not like my writing.

My brother was ordered by his FIFTH GRADE teacher to learn to type. He used his paper route money to buy a manual typewriter. We were taught cursive starting in first grade, so I guess by fifth they'd written him off.

 

[John Webb]

So a Karen in a small village in France (actually the male next door) started yelling at a 92 yr old woman that frogs in her fish pond were too noisy. He had the local police come. She claimed plausible deniability as she stocked the fish but the frogs showed up on their own. Police agreed and said they would have the frogs removed. Lady says good luck with that as they jump fast !

Neighbor calls police on 92-year-old woman over noises coming from her pond: ‘It’s my entertainment’

"A man came to my house and was really yelling at me."

news.yahoo.com

 

[Jenny]

So a Karen in a small village in France (actually the male next door) started yelling at a 92 yr old woman that frogs in her fish pond were too noisy. He had the local police come. She claimed plausible deniability as she stocked the fish but the frogs showed up on their own. Police agreed and said they would have the frogs removed. Lady says good luck with that as they jump fast !

Neighbor calls police on 92-year-old woman over noises coming from her pond: ‘It’s my entertainment’

"A man came to my house and was really yelling at me."

news.yahoo.com

Neighbors behind us had a pool that they let go for a long time, house was empty for a while, too - bullfrogs moved in. I used to lay in bed with the windows open and just giggle when they started calling each night. Then we got new neighbors, pool was cleaned, frogs moved on.

 

[Tricia]

This came up in my news feed after reading an article about a car crash locally.

Woman dies after falling out of golf cart. Driver of golf cart arrested for DUI

Woman dies after falling out of golf cart, man arrested for intoxication manslaughter

SAN ANTONIO - A woman is dead after falling off a golf cart in The Dominion late Thursday night.The accident happened just before 11:30 p.m. off the Dominion D

mynews4.com