If you didn't have a computer, what would you do for work?

Well... I could go back to things I did before taking up a career in software: retail, carpentry work, being a 911 dispatcher, etc. Or I could possibly find a position in the fire service after having been a volunteer firefighter for quite some time (and having most of the relevant certifications, aside from not being an EMT which most agencies want these days).

And I took a couple of years of welding in high-school, and did a lot of shade-tree / hobby auto repair stuff in the past, so I could see welding or auto repair work as possibilities. I also toyed with the idea of becoming an electrician when I was younger, so maybe that? I also kinda always wanted to be a private detective.

So yeah, I dunno, there's a lot of paths I could imagine going down, in a world where I can't do this computer stuff.

Sometimes I daydream about having a totally different profession. Or no profession at all. I've been steeped in tech my entire life. Leaving it behind for a simpler life sounds appealing sometimes. Maybe I could be a farmer and perfect the plant/harvest cycle. Maybe I could be a fisherman and ride the seas. Maybe I could be a cook - I'd love to be a ramen or sushi chef. Maybe I could live a quiet life in the woods, living off simple things that I could grow or buy from the local store.

I enjoy the rat race - nicer titles, nicer places to live, nicer cars, faster tech - but sometimes, I wish I could just live a simple life and not need as much.

I'd be a national park ranger, sometimes leading interpretive talks, other times checking on trail conditions and picking up trash. Maybe wrestle the occasional moose.

I actually went to school for this, but never had the guts to fully follow my heart :(

Closest I ever came was backcountry trail work, where I spent a few months cleaning up burned forests and building trails and staircases through them. Hardest thing I ever did, and makes programming seem so easy in comparison. We had no electricity, gathered water from the river, and had our food and mail delivered by mule wagons. It was great!

I wouldn't have much respect for a business that couldn't supply me with the basic tools. I have actually been in this situation in the 90s. I was working in the USA for a telecoms company. They said that they couldn't give me a PC to use, but it was in the pipeline. In the meantime they gave me an old serial terminal, greenscreen and all, to use with their mainframe. After it warmed up (15 minutes) the contrast failed and there was nothing on the screen. I reported this and was told that's all they had. I offered to buy my own PC and use that until they could supply one but that wasn't allowed. This situation didn't change for many months. Despite the chance to earn a green card I didn't renew my contract.

These days, in a temporary situation, I would use anything that got the job done. A tablet with or without an external keyboard perhaps, but a phone would be marginal.

I wouldn't change professions if an employer couldn't supply a computer, I would change employer.

I don't have to imagine. I worked as an electrical engineer before I got into computers. All I needed was a HP-45 calculator. Designing, documenting, building major infrastructure projects worked very well without computers. So I'm sure we could do the same all over if it came to that.

That's nearly impossible to say, because the non-existence of computers implies an entirely different world from the one we live in. Pretty much literally everything from the 1950s onward was influenced by the development of computers.

But, if I think about what I would have liked to do, hypothetically, I'd love to have pursued math further and gone on to do a PhD. After that, assuming academia hadn't imploded in this hypothetical world, as it has in the real world, I'd like to end up on the tenure track somewhere in a nice city with some culture.

I made gears for a few years (no experience required!, learn on the job), and ended up knowing way more than I thought possible about the involute gear form, bevel gear generation, helical and spur gears, etc. I didn't have a computer at work, I did have a $10 Casio calculator I used to verify gear ratios, etc.

In one of those civilization reset type of scenarios, I'd likely die quickly, but if I managed to survive, I'm teaching how to make gears and analog computing systems from them.

I'm one of the odd birds who knows how to make Slide Rules, and compute logarithms by hand.

I would probably have become a licensed locksmith. My father was a locksmith, and tought me enough that it would have been an easier path to take, as opposed to learning a new profession. I chose to start a CS program after realizing that it had many of the same problem solving aspects with much better pay and future outlook. It's likely a path I would have searched a bit more if computers didn't exist at all.

I don't have any other skills so probably will mop floors or serve meals, as I did before getting into IT.

Man that's going to be tough. Maybe I'll find a gig that provide components so that I can assemble a computer. From what you described, essentially we are back to the 40s, so going back to school to learn EE/Math and get into a gig to make computers is not a bad descision.

I would use a work computer in the same manner as when I used the work CDC Cyber 205 despite not having one of my own, the work seismic survey vessel despite not having one, the work 100 tonne Haulpak despite not having one, the work airplanes and helicopters despite not having one of my own, etc.

Or is this a deeper question about "What if there were no computers"?

> Would you figure out how to code on an iPad or a phone with an external keyboard?

What exactly are you counting as a "computer"? I would've called both of those computers. Install the right software, and I'm back to a Linux environment. Connect it to a TV, and I've got a big screen. Connect a keyboard, and I've got convenient input.

Electronics engineer.

That may be cheating. Probably a systems engineer designing factory automation or something.

Being the local crazy hermit who shouts at trees sounds like a good vocation, too.

I don't have to imagine computers not existing — I was there (personal computers anyway, mainframes were around).

I would probably be an engineer or a draftsman.

Work on electronics, probably avionics, since that was pretty fun and that's what I did before I got into the computer industry.

Something with my hands… carpentry, painting, beer brewing… not sure but lots of possibilities

I would be the computer.

1- Chef 2- Analog photography 3- Cab driver 4- Tourist guide