Knocker Upper

Where does the notion of being on someone else’s time come from? It’s quite an unusual phenomenon. For most of human history, time wasn’t a unit of measure. Sure, farmers had seasons to track and a sundial could get you approximate estimates but never precise. To measure the time something took you needed to compare it to something that everyone understood. You can say it the time takes to reach the other side of town by comparing how long it takes to milk a cow or to cook dinner.

One of the greatest challenges to manufacturing production was assembling the masses to show up at the same place at the same time. After all, it didn’t help the assembly line move efficiently if the person at the front was absent delaying the person down the line. Amplifying the problem. You needed factory workers to show up, on time to begin their shift or the whole system could be delayed. The meager pocket watch became a valuable tool.

Before watches were affordable and accurate, you had people whose job was to march the streets and to go around and wake people up. They were called Knocker Uppers, respectively. Knocker Uppers sometimes used Snuffer Outers, long pole that was used for lighting street lamps to tap on the windows of their clients until they woke up. A famous innovator, Mary Smith, used a pea shooter in 1933.

We forget how much has changed as this profession was around until the 1940s and 50s. Time became a commodity. No longer did anyone measure distance by saying it is down the road and it’ll take 4 bowls of rice to get there. Now, you can measure precisely when and where something is. Time was not something we got but what we gave.