A Person out of Time...

[seawasp]

Over on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written, a poster postulated the following:

"Take a guy from the 50s and drop him into a new car and he'll almost certainly be able to drive to the same sort of office he knew and perform the same sort of sales job, just like he's used to doing.  All that's substantially changed is computers, which he'd probably be quickly be able to learn just as well (aka, poorly) as people do these days."

My reaction to this -- and that of several other posters -- was "what are you smoking?"

In my opinion, drop a guy (in sales or marketing) from the 1950s into a 2013 model car, cold, he'll have a hell of a time figuring out how to work the CAR, let alone drive to work. And he'll be utterly at sea with respect to doing his work. As far as I can make out, sales and marketing jobs today are *LIGHTYEARS* different from those done 60 years ago. He'll be having to deal with things ranging from the startlingly annoying ("What do you mean, I can't smoke at my desk?") to the potentially career-ending-in-one-day ("What's wrong, toots? I slapped your ass, sure, it's a nice ass, take it as a compliment, babe!") to the incomprehensible ("Why is there a skinny TV on my desk? Where's my Rolodex? What happened to my PHONE?")


So, fellow readers... what would YOU think will happen to Mr. 1950 Dagwood Bumstead or even Freddy Fastlane salesman/marketer when he steps into his car and finds... he's in the year 2013?

Comments

[elainegrey.livejournal.com]

I think what drives the diversity of responses is probably the context in which we are talking about the "out of timeness." Are we talking about someone who is popped from the 50s to now with the instruction, "You need to blend in, here's your cover identity, this is your house, you're starting work at Proctor and Gamble on Monday promoting the new product line under the Ivory brand to the few remaining privately owned pharmacies, drug stores, and markets in the tri state area." And then the folks hand him a smart phone, fob to the latest model car, and tell him good luck?

Or are we talking about Great Aunt Maureen finishing her time machine (finally), and pulling her first and only love from out in front the careening bus, saving him from his death then to give him a new life now, leaving everything to him, and helping him get his career restarted?

Bob, our time agent, isn't going to have it easy, and the fish out of water movie plots all happen.

Sam, Great Aunt Maureen's new heir, is going to be coping far better by Friday.

Both Bob and Sam have grounding from the 50s to have mental models that allow them adapt to the technology with time: they won't recognize that glassy slab as a phone if they're looking for a phone, but it's easy enough to explain to them that phones are smaller and use radio waves instead of wires.

As far as culture shock goes, i suspect that it's comparable to that of someone coming to the US from a fairly conservative Islamic country, a provincial region of Japan, or so on. There too, given compassionate Great Aunt Maureen to guide and explain for some months, Sam can probably get by pretty well after a year.

Bob, on his own? Yeah, the other team's time agents are going to get him.

...

I often think about how different the sensory experience would be for someone from before the 1850s. The pervasiveness of brilliant color that would have only been seen on a flower that would fade. Flavors pushed to extremes. Music all the time. Nights blazing with light. Unfamiliar odors (i have no idea if they'd be more pleasant or not.)