What I Learned in Secretarial School

New York Times ^ | Aug. 11, 2018 | Frank Bruni

[libstripper]

I hate to break it to parents who just sent their college-admission-minded progeny to the Tibetan Plateau to churn yak butter, but the smartest summer I ever spent was in secretarial school.

This was back when I was 17, and it wasn’t grist for an essay about a transformative communion with people outside my clique. I wasn’t ripping the blinders from my eyes. I was typing — hour upon hour, day after day, with my shoulders back and my spine straight and my hands just so.

[umgud]

#1. Typing
#2. MS Office

[miss marmelstein]

Who knew there were still secretarial schools...

Why didn’t gay boy Bruni take it in high school? Don’t they still offer courses?

The only thing worthwhile in his column was explaining the phony ritual of upper middle class white parents sending off little Johnny to a third world country to learn Swahili in order to get into UVA or some other overrated school. They’d learn more about life and America by working as a manager of McDonalds.

[MayflowerMadam]

Same here. Even though in Advanced Placement in the NY Regents program, I took Personal Typing because I needed an elective. Manual typewriters with manual carriage return. Ugh!

That’s what got me in the doors of corporations, where I advanced within the systems. Tyoing and Latin were my most useful courses.

[BipolarBob]

Them panagrams is what them supernatural types go for. I stay away from them symbols for sure.

[Deaf Smith]

I took typing senior year HS. Teacher wanted to flunk me 'cause I could not break 40 wpm. Pleaded my case that I now knew how to type.

Ed Major in college diagnosed my dyslexia. Paid another gal gallon buckets of Gandies Ice Cream for final type my papers.

[DoodleBob]

That's three of us. The only problem was that we didn't focus on numbers - I think we ran out of time. However, with the number keypad most computer keyboards have nowadays it isn't a big omission.

One bummer about the demise of typewriters is that you got a workout on the Selectric. You could feel your forearm bulking up. That said, I MUCH prefer the computer and autocorrect.

I used to be able to type 80wpm. In fact I *think* I type faster than my admin. I'll have to time myself tomorrow.

[ladyjane]

One summer I bought a book - Teach Yourself to Type in 24 Hours. It had me typing without looking quickly. In no time at all I was touch typing.

the red deer the red deer is right
The red deer does the right thing
It is right for all of us to do the right thing.
Except for the a, the l and the s, the sentences use just the three fingers

It was much more valuable than the summer I taught myself how to play the ukulele. That was interesting but I never found it very useful. The two most useful skills I learned during the summers were: typing and algebra.

[Deaf Smith]

*of my papers

[Innovative]

Typing is indeed a very useful skill, regardless what you end up doing in life.

[FrankR]

I used to write a small column for the local newspaper, and one of them was about this very subject...typing. I'm going to post it here.

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I'VE ALWAYS LOVED THAT TYPE WRITER
12-08-2016

Of ALL the high school, and college courses I've taken, over, lo, so many years, Miss Ash's typing classes have been the most valuable, and useful, in my adult life.

I think, in today's world, they call it "keyboarding". Typewriters are kind of rare nowadays, but, they were once the staple of every business around.

I took Typing I, and Typing II, in high school, mainly as a crib course, but, actually, I already knew a little about typewriters. I remember my Mother once rented a manual typewriter, along with a book about typing. She wanted to learn to type to possibly get a better job. I think she lost interest in it after about a month.

But, I didn't!

I was probably in the 4th, or 5th grade about that time, and I got her book on "typing", folded down the top on her Singer pedal sewing machine into a "desk", set up that old typewriter, and commenced to read, and learn.

Now, I never made it to the ultimate level of "touch typist", but I familiarized myself about things like, "shift", "return", tabs, and the "home keys". The basics.

But, starting typing class in high school, to my chagrin, the letters, on the keys, were all covered up! What the he....?!?

The teacher had a big, pull-down chart on the wall, identifying the whole keyboard, but we'd only get two, or three keys, a day. From there, it was typing page, after page, of, "asdf asdf asdf, asdf", ad infinitum. I did eventually learn to be a "touch typist", able to type anything without looking at the keyboard...now, if I could do that on the piano, I'd be a virtuoso.

After high school, I didn't use typing much, until one day - a bitterly cold day - in Germany. Trying to keep us all busy, the sergeant decided some of the ammo bunkers needed "sweeping out". He nabbed about ten of us, armed us with shop brooms, and we went on to the first bunker.

When I say, it was cold that day, I mean, IT WAS COLD THAT DAY! But, inside those bunkers, all concrete, it was even colder.

Anyway, about halfway through sweeping out the first one, the First Sergeant walked in and bellowed, "Anybody in here know how to type?". "I'm your man, Sergeant!", I blurted out. The Sergeant said, "Report to the Orderly Room (the office), we gotta s***load of typin' to be done!" Overjoyed at the thought of getting out of this sweeping detail, and working in a nice, warm, office, I snapped, "YESSIREE!".

Upon arriving at the Orderly Room, I did find a mountainous stack of forms to be typed, but I didn't care how big the pile was, so long as it got me out of that cold, cold, bunker.

What was to have been a week, filling in as a clerk-typist, turned into a month, leading to being tapped as the squadron "mail carrier". My job then, in addition to the typing, was every morning to drive about 15 miles, into the main Base, and pick up the squadron's mail, and to sort, and distribute same, when I returned. I even had to take the USPS postal exam, and everything. The irony was, I was actually a Missile Guidance Tech that had been sent to a greatly overstaffed missile shop, and they were farming out all of the non-NCO's for miscellaneous jobs.

After I was discharged from the Air Force, in 1968, I decided to combine my love of music, my writing skills, my training in electronics, and my baritone voice, and I enrolled at the "Atlanta School Of Radio & TV Broadcasting", become an Announcer/ Deejay. I subsequently spent over 15 years in that profession, and during the whole time, my typing skills were invaluable. I had to constantly write news stories, advertising copy, Public Service Announcements, and business letters, all, on typewriters.

While in the JayCees, I did the monthly newsletter, along with op eds, and newspaper columns and articles.

Later, working at the telephone company, I was tapped to create a 200 page technical training manual.

In the 80's, along came computers, and I got me a book, and learned "programming". I spent my final, five years with the phone company, as a "systems analyst", writing and maintaining business applications. Without typing, none of this would have been easy.

All of these things, thanks to an old, "Underwood", typewriter, and a typing teacher). I actually ran into her a couple of years ago, while out shopping. We chatted for a bit, and as soon as she remembered that I was not my cousin, Smokey, we talked about "typing". I told her about that her classes had been worth more to me than a College education... and, I mean that!

I love the fact that I can still type, the old fashioned way. I still use it almost daily in writing my little anecdotes, as well as many other tasks.

But, I find it totally ironic, that after all that keyboard training, I'm sitting here, "hunting and pecking" an "on-screen" keyboard on this I-Pad.

I guess if it wasn't for "auto-correct", I'd be putting "Wite-Out" on the screen for my spelling errors.

Old habits die hard.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

When I was a junior in HS in 1968, Dad enrolled me in a summer typing class. Being the obedient son, I dutifully attended and then, to my surprise, I found out I was the ONLY guy in the class. Wow, that was heaven. Dad bought me a Smith Coron a portable electric typewriter (in a hard travel case) the following summer as I was headed off to college as a freshman. He said I would get great use out of it typing papers. He was a man of great wisdom.

The funny thing is, when PCs began taking off in the early 80s, I remember Dad saying many times “Real managers don’t touch keyboards. That is secretarial work.” He never did use a PC or write an email to his dying day.

How could a man who looked down on typing as “secretarial work” insist his son take a typing class and buy him a typewriter? It’s almost as if he knew PCs were only a decade away. I never did ask him about that before he passed.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I remember practicing both.

[Misplaced Texan]

I am with you. I went to a small rural school and there were only 21 people in my graduating class. My Jr. year, I had one class that was optional. Fortunately, the option went away as it ended up being Typing because no else wanted the other class.

It was beneficial in typing both my Master’s Thesis and my Doctoral Dissertation. It eventually became very important as we moved to a computer environment in the 1980’s.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

80 wpm! Wow, impressed. The best I could ever muster always maybe 35 no matter how hard I tried (I think it matched my reading speed 😉). At least I can stil, touch type rather accurately, except that skill is fading since I retired last year. On FR, it's usually two-thumb typing on the iPad which is horrible. My mom was amazing at the typewriter. I think she could hit 90 accurately for some good stretches. Not surprisingly, she was a good pianist as well.

[Oldexpat]

In 1959 I was the only boy in a class of 34 girls who took typing. My B was a gift from the teacher. But it really helped. The other gift was my first real HS girlfriend taught me to use a slide rule. And a few other life skills.

[Cedar]

Great story, thanks for posting.

I was completely bored during the first semester high school typing class. For some reason the second semester I became interested and ended up being one of the best in the class. Have used the skill in every job since.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

She could handle your slipstick? Color me impressed! I didn't get hands on one until frosh engineering school...and had to teach mysopelf. 😟

[T-Bird45]

I had to take Personal Typing the 1st semester of my junior year so I could get on the HS newspaper staff the next semester. Then my dad was transferred to another state for my senior year and I found I had all the credits I needed for graduation except the required 1 semester state history class. However, I couldn’t take just that so I filled my schedule with every business class offered in that small HS (42 in my class.) This included a full year of typing so I really got my speed improved.

The only other class that was as helpful in college was Senior English where the teacher basically taught us how to easily pass freshman composition in college. Blessed that man’s name my entire freshman year while many of my peers couldn’t write a thesis statement to save their soul.

[Vermont Lt]

Et years after my freshman year in college. No one can write a thesis statement now either.

I write a coherent report, and people look at me as if I were a wizard.

[lightman]

HS freshman typing class 1975.

Had a very politically incorrect homeroom teacher who advised certain types of girls to go to “SEXratary school” because they were already “huntin’ peckers”.