Unfiltered Story #312472

Years ago, while in college (and well before common usage of home computers), I was looking for a Summertime job to help cover expenses. A Chicago government office accepted my application as a typist.

The first day of work, the supervisor asked if I could handle an IBM machine. Thinking she meant “IBM Home Computer”, I said “yes”, since I had one. She then walked me over to an IBM Selectric typewriter, and had me write a few sentences. I was hired.

The job consisted of retyping quite old handwritten or typed legal documents onto a special, parchment-like paper. NO errors were permitted. Any small typo had to be erased with a razor blade. I was quite good, and fairly fast.

One day, a permanent typist told me to slow down, because I was making the other typists “look bad”. So, I slowed down a little.

Completed documents were given to a pair of “checkers”, who compared the new document with the original, to assure absence of errors. On occasion, I was given that job, and paired with an elderly gentleman who had health problems, and sometimes missed work. During one of these assignments, that gentleman was absent, and one of the documents to be checked was one I previously typed. I gave it a quick check (knowing my typing was accurate), and passed it on, as “approved” for the requesting agency.

You guessed it … there was a typo, and I missed it! The requesting agency was VERY upset that they received the document with an error, and they passed on their dissatisfaction to my supervisor’s boss.

Supervisor found me, and said something like, “There was no note who checked this document, so I don’t know who to blame, but you were the typist. You need to re-do the whole thing. Don’t tell anybody I gave you another sheet of parchment”. So I did … and kept that job for the remainder of the Summer. I guess I learned not to try and speed up a government process.