My first job was as an inserter in 1985. I did it for 5 years. It was hard work but it taught me how to work. I left and went to college but I don't really regret those days. Or should I say nights...
Wow, me too, same year, 5 years. Chicago Tribune. Ditching school to work, was making 200usd a week back then. Lots of money for a young teenager in the 80s.
I went from flyboy to operator from 1972 to 2005; from newspapers to job shops to businesses forms, in San Diego and San Luis Obispo/Atascadero/Paso Robles, CA. on 8 and 12 unit Goss Urbanites, as well as 7 unit Fairchild News Kings and 9 unit Fairchild Color King; also Harris and Didde Glaser roll-to-roll web presses. The in-between times were spent on Hamada, Multilith and A.B. Dick sheet fed offset duplicators. A desire to make myself more valuable drove me to learn how to operate and maintain an SLS 1000 10-station inserting machine, IDAB stackers, and various portable conveyor tables and tying and strapping machines. I had to unload and stack innumerable truckloads of 1,000 ib. double rolls of newsprint with various clamp lifts. Because the press work often went later than the composing, camera and plate making departments worked, it was necessary to gain a working knowledge of those processes, too. In one shop I also got to climb around for hours on and explore a non-operational early 20th century 12 unit, 3-story-high Hoe letterpress, sporting brass guard- and handrails, that had been shut down in a labor dispute years before our press was installed. The press was still webbed, rolls in place, thick-skinned ink still in the fountains. In a time of powerful unions, they shut it down and walked out in the middle of a press run. When I first started printing, it was because that was the first job I could find. I never dreamed it would become a life long trade. I couldn't believe the things those wild, insane bastards did. The whole trade at the time was like that; every one of the people I worked with either drank too much or couldn't drink anymore. Pressman would be drinking the entire shift, no matter how long it lasted. Drugs were ubiquitous and no one wore ear protection, and the labor laws in Cali back then allowed for overtime pay after 40 hours, but not after 8. Consequently, it wasn't uncommon to work 40 hours straight, then get sent home before OT pay began. I'm astonished that no one got flattened. Safety laws and measures were ignored, but nobody cared; that was for female orifices (the intended word wouldn't pass the RU-vid™ Mythical Council of Elders® Code). Boy, were we stupid. Does anyone recall monkey poles? We'd climb down the pole holding on with one hand and gripping a 90 lb. steel roll shaft in the other. What idiocy. The terminology was wonderful; outside of the pressroom, if you said to someone, "After we mounted the new blankets, I went up on the balloon to adjust the trolleys so the webs would feed." they would back away slowly and use soothing words to keep you calm until psychiatric help arrived. I had become one of those wild, insane bastards when I wasn't looking. I couldn't wait to get away from the stink of ink, but a few years after retiring I found myself wishing I could stand on an ink-stained diamond patterned deck plate once again and cut color; or stand at the console, finger on the go-faster button as I yell over the roaring silence of the press, "SAVE 'EM!" When I left after uncountable trips up and down those cold steel ladders, my legs were as hard as that steel, but my knees were shot. It's just as well; I didn't have to watch the big, heavy Sunday editions, like I threw when I was 14, shrink down to the pamphlets they have become today; or see the presses that created them get cut up and sold for scrap because now the individual papers are all printed at one facility in another city. What a shame.
I used to work at daily news in Valencia ca , is gone, news papers are disappearing you guys enjoy your job while you can. I used to be truck driver boy I miss that job. That was a good job!!
So the phrase, “Stop the press!” actually means something more than stop the news. Cool. I kind of knew it did, but it’s still great to have it explained and physically shown nevertheless.
I work in newspaper mailroom, our equipment and machines are from the 1960s and 1970s, we have to do on the spot maintainence every night, makes our jobs, very hard.
I believe our equipment is from the late 80s or 90s could be wrong. I've done plenty of overtime for our faulty equipment. I'd include a picture if I could. I was an inserter but I'm a press stacker now, so I get to help on both sides of press and post press. It's a cool job . Hard work but it pays for my college so I can't complain.
I'm the third generation in newspaper printing I personally have been involved in it for 40 plus years My heart and my soul was put into that now it has been shut down it is not like it used to be with 0 respect....
The printing process is quite impressive. Please tell us, how do you manage the wastage of over issued print waste, core, tear, cover, etc. ? How do you manage the stock of it ? what is your process?
I was SO DISAPPOINTED when the Globe discontinued their glossy paper. The glossy paper really made the paper cutting edge. I absolutely loathe the current paper type.
I can answer that - I'm retired from commercial printing (not newspapers) but the answer is the same. Those aluminum plates are gathered up and recycled.
@@user-jn7tc3tp2x We also used to sell a few used plates @ 25¢ apiece to people that wanted .007" thick aluminum sheets for various projects. I made a Tin Man costume for Halloween one year.
You wont fire anyone. why? Because you cant or are not smart enough to work on the press. You must have a meeting or lunch or something to do. Get out of the pressroom. Fire someone? You cant replace a good pressman.
