Pssh. I used punch cards and paper tape uphill both ways and liked it.
When I started at UA, I went to work for the University Auditor, since I already had accounting experience. My first task every month was reconciling the 17 UA bank accounts. (They wouldn't let me touch the AD accounts.) That took the first two weeks of the month. They would bring in the trays and stack them up around my walls to the ceiling. In those trays, there would be five or six checks with the little square holes in the wrong place. It was a maddening job. On top of everything else, the Auditor, Compton, was a retired Marine sergeant. The Controller, whom we were supposed to be auditing, was a retired Navy captain. That didn't work, when Compton felt obliged to say "Yes Sir" and "No Sir." I finally quit, but I wrote up a five page report on what was wrong with the department. I was told later by my former co-employees that it became the "bible" for reforming the organization.
I decided I wanted away from accounting. I had two older brothers who were CPAs and had started working in it when I was around 14. I went out to Northington Laundry and applied for a job as a counter man. I was interviewed by Mrs. Barrett, Col. Barrett's wife. She listened to me and then told me that counter men were a dime a dozen, but that they needed an in-house accountant and she understood that I was a trained accountant. I still don't know how she found that out. I hadn't put the Auditor down as a reference because, TBF, after my parting diatribe, I didn't know how I stood with them. So, I went to work, not at the laundry, but downtown at their CPA's office, dealing with more punch card checks. They found out I had auditing experience, so I became their "extra" when they needed additional personnel.
Might as well finish the story of my education. I managed not to work my first year in law school. (Back then, most who tried that flunked out.) In my second year, I applied for a part-time position with ADOR as an income tax auditor. I found out later that the job was essentially a political plum for a favorite son of a politician. However, I had scored the highest score on the Merit Service test which had ever be scored, so they couldn't
not hire me. So, they hired us both. After finishing law school, I thought it would be a shame to waste my accounting experience, so I went on to NYU for the legal masters in taxation. Years later, I was talking to a CPA and he exclaimed "Earle, talking to you is just like talking to another accountant." He then went on and said some unkind things about tax lawyers in general and a couple in particular. I knew what he was talking about. There are tax lawyers who couldn't read a balance sheet or a profit and loss statement to save their lives. This makes it very frustrating for the accountants. So, closing, yes I was getting my feet wet in the business world when Mag Card typewriters were the greatest thing since sliced bread...
Edit: Sorry for the length...