Asklemmy

I think so? Libraries certainly existed, so there's that. Workshops existed, even if they were less industrialized/more artisanal. The only novelty might be that the two should be in the same place.

Then again, libraries of old apparently were used for a lot more than just books/scrolls, and trade guilds must have needed written materials often enough... Maybe the modern makerspace is a reinvention of an old concept? I have no idea.

I am an IT Technician, I guess I would explain my job as being a scollar and a teacher.

If it's not a one line reply with a designation and a linkedin description, but a conversation over drinks, they'd get everything we explain to them. I presume it's a smart person. There are many people in today's time who won't get it in a one liner.

I make energy (a word describing the measure of the invisible magic which makes sea waves happen, the sensation of warmth of the sun on your skin, and the effort you put into lifting heavy rocks) move around really, really, really fast, and lots and lots of it too.

Controlling this 'energy' is a difficult task because if you give it even a little chance, 'energy' will escape in the easiest, most useless way possible. Half my job is planning how to prevent energy from escaping without doing something useful first.

They'd understand perfectly. When my employers buy something, it's my job to check that it arrives in good order and matches what we asked for, and then arrange for the sender to be paid.

Sometimes the thing is a piece of equipment for transmitting real-time video of tumours from one part of the country to another, but I don't think we need to go into that.

I (a software engineer) sit at a table and pound my fingers against an object for many hours a day. That’s it.

I'm the guy who makes sure the castle is built to keep out the invaders. Only everything is made of captured lightning.

Gets burned at the stake

I create drawings of the enclosure of machines and contraptions, you know, the knobs and switches and all those things, and then instruct machines to assemble those machines according to the drawings.

People who try to work together fail to do it well, so I help them understand why this happens, so that they can do better.

I work for a training department for a large financial institution. I think I could explain it as teaching people how to do their job better. Though I don't actually do much teaching, personally.

I'd have to go through a bunch of concepts about light, moving motion and photography in general but I'm sure we'd get there eventually.

I do qa for headsets so uh... Imagine a painting that moves. Now imagine instead of seeing the world, there was a device that makes you only see those moving paintings. I make sure that device and the paintings work well together.

If anyone knows of any kind of animation technique from that era that would help with the description. But even flip books wouldn't be invented for like 150 more years so 🤷‍♀️ Maybe I could find a nice painting and give the person a bunch of mushrooms and be like "this but different"

Yes. We do it using computers now, so a lot of what I do is more database management but the basic method we use for accounting has been around since before the year of our lord 1300. All the stuff we do is just to make it possible to do at scale.

Pretty easily, yeah. Customer tells me in advance what goods they want, and pay a little extra for me to buy the goods for them and meet at a dropoff point so they have more time to do... whatever people did in 1700... play video games?