Jobs From 50 Years Ago That No Longer Exist

"Listen, you little whippersnapper, back when I was your age, I marched 10 miles every morning to break my back for a living!"

Okay, so it's annoying when your grandpa shouts this every Thanksgiving, but he isn't exaggerating (much). As science and technology have shot forward like speeding bullets, the job market has evolved in leaps and bounds, resulting in yesterday's lucrative career paths becoming today's unimaginable chores. On one hand, it's scary to think about all the jobs automation will swallow up in 10 years. But on the other, would you really want to do a bunch of dangerous or tedious or utterly mind-numbing grunt work? Didn't think so. Back when Gen X was in diapers and the baby boomers were learning to spell, their parents were slaving away at jobs that are now more extinct than the velociraptor.

You have to hand it to those ravens in Game of Thrones, who somehow deliver letters all over Westeros while rarely getting shot down. In real life, the closest equivalent were carrier pigeons, which really did deliver messages across vast distances, though not with the same supernatural reliability. Surprisingly enough, the U.S. Navy still had a fleet of carrier pigeons as recently as 1961, according to USNI News, which were used as a backup communication line in case some disaster took out the radio. Since pigeons aren't genetically predisposed to deliver notes for hairless monkeys, the Navy had to employ military pigeon trainers, or professional "pigeoneers."

While the Vietnam years marked the end of U.S. pigeoneers, other countries kept the profession going for a while longer. In fact, it wasn't until 1996 that the world's last war pigeon force was disbanded, according to the Associated Press. The final holdout? Switzerland, and it didn't happen easily: At least 100,000 people signed a petition trying to get the carrier pigeon service placed into the Swiss constitution. The petition was unsuccessful, and the last war pigeons flew into retirement.

When you hear the word "computer," you probably envision a machine. Once upon a time, though, computer was actually a job title — and according to Curiosity, most computers were women.

Pocket calculators weren't yet a thing, and that meant complex mathematical puzzles (such as determining rocket paths, thrust-to-weight ratios, or other things that would traumatize your grade school self) had to be solved with a paper and pen. History says the math done by this army of female thinkers forged many of the 20th century's greatest scientific achievements, particularly those of NASA. They earned a decent wage, as well, pocketing the equivalent of $50,000 a year, according to Mercer. By the 1970s, though, the tide had changed. Computers were replaced by ... well, computers of the mechanical variety. Nobody trusted these weird devices at first, but once they took over, human computers were out of a job. Nonetheless, while the services of human computers are rarely mentioned today, they deserve huge credit for building the world everyone lives in.

The U.S. Civil War mostly ended slavery, but as soldiers went home, a newly freed black population struggled to find paying jobs. Meanwhile, according to the Smithsonian, an industrialist named George Pullman wanted to popularize his new brand of luxury sleeper trains. Pullman decided to keep his costs down by hiring ex-slaves to be his passenger attendants. These Pullman porters, as they were called, were assigned to shine shoes, make beds, and other demeaning tasks while earning very little money. They were also forced to answer to their employer's name, "George," a remnant of slavery that implied Pullman was their master. However, these workers took a raw deal and tried to make change. Pullman porters used their job to travel, to form a line of communication with America's aristocracy, and to become figureheads within their local communities. When the poor payment and mistreatment got bad enough, the Pullman porters made history in 1925 by forming a union to demand better working conditions. This underdog group challenged the corporation that hired them, won their case, and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, many notable figures like Malcolm X and Thurgood Marshall worked as Pullman porters in their youth. By 1969, though, the luxury train travel industry lost steam, and the Meriden Journal reported that the Pullman porter workforce had dropped from 2,300 to only 325 men. Today, history remembers these workers for their tenacity, their defiance, and their strength in the face of prejudice.

If you think text messaging is cool, don't forget to thank that technology's great grandfather: the telegram. For kids in the audience, telegrams were printed messages, sent from far away through an electrical telegraph, and then delivered by a teenager in an olive green uniform. Basically, imagine a cross between snail mail and email, minus the internet. According to the Telegraph (no pun intended), telegram boys were almost always young men who mounted either bicycles, mopeds, or motorcycles to bring these faraway messages right to your doorstep. So if you were wondering whether your Uncle Phil had survived the war, a telegram was the fastest way to get the news.

Though the New York Times reports that telegram deliveries numbered near 200 million back in 1929, the next few decades saw telegrams get destroyed by their slick new competitor, the dial telephone. By 1968, the legendary squads of green-suited boys were dismissed. Over in the U.K., though, telegram boys continued spinning their wheels up through the 1970s, according to the Falmouth Packet.

Sometimes your job gets replaced by a machine. Sometimes, changing cultural standards render it outdated. And sometimes, the majority of the population thinks your job is so ridiculous that they spend decades trying to kick you out.

People will debate the proper role of government intervention for years to come, but most people can agree that the U.S. federal government doesn't need an entire branch dedicated to drinking tea. Bizarrely enough, the Board of Tea Examiners existed as a federal entity from 1897 to the end of the 20th century, funded by over $250,000 a year, according to the New York Times. This seven-person operation was designated with the sacred duty of ... uh, taste-testing every tea that was imported into the United States to make sure the quality was high enough for the oh-so-fine American palette. No, this isn't a joke. Naturally, giant tea corporations like Lipton loved these federal tea workers, since it meant the government paid to have their tea tasted. Presidential administrations ranging from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter tried to kick these tea workers to the curb, it wasn't until the Clinton years that the New York Times reported that the Senate had successfully disbanded the Board of Tea Examiners, with no debate. Considering that over 20 years have passed, it seems like the tea industry survived the change.