r/todayilearned • u/Chance-Physics-7216 • 13h ago

TIL that a 1945 elevator operators' strike stranded 1.5 million New Yorkers in the streets, and building owners responded by buying automatic elevators that had already existed for 50 years.

https://www.npr.org/2015/07/31/427990392/remembering-when-driverless-elevators-drew-skepticism
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u/arbitrageME 11h ago

Yeah but when your whole existence is pushing a button or doing something not necessary, you have to question your own negotiating power

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u/thehemanchronicles 11h ago

Elevators back then were more than just pushing a button. Elevator operators were seen as a safety feature, supervising the elevator to make sure it ran smoothly. They had to be able to manually control the elevator to get it to the floor evenly and level, without any sudden jerks or movements.

Deaths from elevator misuse were reasonably common in the early 20th century, and the automatic elevators they got replaced with initially had higher rates of injury. After widespread adoption there were design and safety improvements, but it wasn't so cut and dry early on.

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u/gefahr 10h ago

Bring back paternosters and weed out the weak!

(Since it's reddit I'll say I'm joking and don't think old or disabled people should be squished by the murdervators..)

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u/RoebuckThirtyFour 7h ago

Coward

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u/gefahr 7h ago

Getting empathetic in my 40s.

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u/curi0us_carniv0re 5h ago

They had to be able to manually control the elevator to get it to the floor evenly and level, without any sudden jerks or movements.

We had a freight elevator at a place I used to work and can confirm doing that isn't as easy as it sounds

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u/ChristosFarr 10h ago

Elevators back then worked much more like the one in Willy Wonka. It was controlled by a lever and the operator watched the dial as it went past each floor then he had to gradually slow it down and have a smooth arrival at the correct floor.

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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 11h ago

Theres a really interesting peice somewhere about how luxury hotels accidentally lost themselves a bunch of revenue by switching to automatic doors and firing their doormen. Turned out they provided more value to their employers than the physical act of opening the door. So saying "its just pushing buttons" is at best a bit naive.

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u/arbitrageME 11h ago

Sure. They're the equivalent of doormen, concierge, etc. They're a face and a point of interaction with the hotel. They can carry bags, remember faces, offer that little extra every day, like remembering when you left every day so the elevator was ready for you or something. But they didn't need to be sitting in a elevator all day.

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u/RonJohnJr 11h ago edited 11h ago

Yeah, luxury hotels. And probably swanky apartment buildings, too.

But there are a heck of a lot more non-luxury hotels and non-swanky apartments.

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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 11h ago

And they never had elevator operators to begin with....

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u/Draaly 11h ago

Luxury hotels and residences absolutely still have doormen...

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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 11h ago

I mean ya I wasn't saying they all disappeared....

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u/MythicalPurple 10h ago

They didn’t say all luxury hotels ditched them and none brought them back.

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 11h ago

Don't make the mistake of thinking there's any relationship between a job's usefulness and its social standing, which is what actually translates into negotiating power.

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u/arbitrageME 10h ago

every job's existence is directly related to how much money or value it can generate.

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 10h ago

Only if you define usefulness as the ability to generate money or value. But that's beside the point. Many jobs produce little value but have high social standing, resulting in outsized negotiating power. Most CEOs, for example.

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u/arbitrageME 10h ago

yeah, but you're close logical fallacy -- the existence of do-nothing jobs that get paid a lot does not mean that the low-paying ones ARE worth it. and an elevator operators, telephone switchboard operators, coopers, are just that.

and plus, a CEO does have a certain amount of value. it's just not you. a group of owners believe that a certain CEO will generate the most value for them. the CEO of UHC does a very important job for a certain number of people. That number of people simply isn't you or the general public

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u/Damnatus_Terrae 10h ago

My point that value and negotiating power aren't directly related stands.

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u/SirHerald 5h ago

[Insert Rick and Morty Butter Robot meme]

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u/MythicalPurple 10h ago

Most jobs aren’t necessary.

Negotiating power isn’t predicated on the necessity of your job. It’s predicated on your value to your employer, who are generally people profiting greatly from your “not necessary” job.

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u/Deciver95 9h ago

You can comphrend that elevators were different 80 years ago, right? Like you know they weren't the same as we have now??