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My Analog Life

We’re looking back at how work used to get done.
Whether it’s firing up a Telex Machine, navigating with paper maps, or dialing up a rotary phone, we want to hear your memories of work from way back when — whether you remember it fondly, or not.
My Analog Life

Introducing "My Analog Life"

Maria Hollenhorst and Sofia Terenzio Jun 25, 2024

From This Collection

My Analog Life

A former floral delivery driver looks in the rearview mirror

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 19, 2024
Meghan Irby mapped her routes the old-fashioned way before navigation software was a thing. Her boss "used chickens as a landmark."
Meghan Irby circa 2004, when she worked as a floral delivery driver in rural West Virginia. "I was sweaty most of the time, both from the heat and the stress,” she recalls.
Courtesy Irby
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My Analog Life

Record scratch: A DJ remembers her analog days

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 15, 2024
DJ Asha recalls that at the beginning of her career, she lugged vinyl records across London.
Los Angeles-based DJ Asha uses a controller and laptop on Catalina Island, California, in June. "I'm really grateful for the technology because it's allowed us to do so much," she says.
Courtesy DJ Asha
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My Analog Life

A former motorcycle messenger rides down memory lane

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 12, 2024
“I used up eight of my nine lives in that job,” said Ray Charlton, who drove paperwork around Los Angeles in the 1980s.
A motorcyclist splits lanes as drivers sit in traffic in Southern California in 2024. In the 1980s, motorcycle messengers zoomed around Los Angeles delivering papers.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
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My Analog Life

A physician recalls life before electronic medical records

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 10, 2024
Technology has allowed Dr. Winnie Lau of Florida to see more patients, but the level of care she's giving is the same, she says.
Before the widespread adoption of electronic medical records, doctors filled out a lot of paperwork in triplicate.
Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
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My Analog Life

Remember what “9 to 5” used to look like?

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 3, 2024
“Office jobs involved a lot of paperwork,” recalled Stephanie Sharf, who entered the labor force in 1968.
"Our word processing center, it was the model for the movie '9 to 5,'" said Stephanie Sharf. "Jane Fonda actually came into our office and walked around and observed." Above, a screenshot from the documentary “Still Working 9 to 5.”
Mighty Fine Entertainment
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My Analog Life

A former file clerk remembers the camaraderie at her first job

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 2, 2024
As one of five teenage girls on the file clerk team, Lisa Cintron said her days were filled with chit-chat and music reverberating from a boombox in the back. 
A photo of Lisa Cintron’s office where she worked as a file clerk, circa 1980-1981.
Courtesy Cintron
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My Analog Life

In the era of hand-drawn drafts, one landscape designer remembers: “I was creating a piece of art”

by Maria Hollenhorst
Jul 1, 2024
In the first installment of our series “My Analog Life,” a landscape architect reminisces about drafting by hand.
A hand-drawn landscape design by Eric Weishaar in 2001. The project was for a client whose son was in a wheelchair and wanted an accessible landscape on their home.
Courtesy Weishaar
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