Hacker News

I miss the days when people would bring their animals on the job <3

Blue tile, pink slip.

What's the purpose? Is it for communicating? or a signed document?

Maybe the clay composition, the process of firing it and the final product serve as the signature of the company? Also tile can't be burnt while paper can be. Interesting idea.

    This is an old handmade pan tile, made on 21st July 1802. [...] Reading the information, it seems that this is an order list for the maker. With no paper and pen to hand, the words were jotted down on a freshly formed clay tile, which was waiting to be dried out and fired. This tile was fired, used on a roof, and remained in place for approximately 220 years. 

> Once the inscription had been made, the clay was fired to create a finished roof tile and was then put to its intended use.

fun fact: this is the origin of being 'let go' coming to be known as "getting fired"

I do wonder if British roofers in the 19th century had a similar sense of humour to British roofers today.

"Psst, pass this tile up to that useless so and so John..." or "Hey, John, there's one tile left over, you can have it."

> The fact that someone went to the trouble of writing that out on the back of clay before it was fired, and then firing the tile

Not to mention firing John Lewis. It does have some consistency to it.

They fired the clay to fire someone

“To whom it may concern,

After thus performing one’s duties with this tile, report to E. Booker for reeducation.”

This is what I immediately thought of, some dystopian metaverse where a roofer gets sacked…

The story is less dystopian and pale.

how high was the rate of illiteracy then? I' guessing it was still high at that point in time, which makes you think why it was written out in the first place.

This reminds me of my high school woodworking teacher, who would tend to write late notes for other teachers on pieces of wood whenever we didn't finish class on time.

The tile next to it has got a 200-year-old offer of "generous" severance that is conditional on non-disclosure, non-disparagement, a waiver of all claims and an agreement to binding arbitration in the case of disputes.

Anywhere wood shingles/shakes are used for siding they're commonly used as scratch pads for record keeping. If the writing on them is no longer needed and they're the right size and close at hand they get installed. There are plenty of last month's time punches and yesterday's materials lists on people's houses.

> "The fact that someone went to the trouble of writing that out on the back of clay before it was fired, and then firing the tile and using it for the purpose it was designed for," Giles added.

This makes my brain hurt. The fact that some did that..... and?!

It might be impossible to determine but wonder if it was a joke, written by another coworker or by the “dismissed”. Mostly find it odd the writing was done before the tile was cured. Anyway cool stuff. Reminds me of deciphering Roman graffiti a bit.

In the last photo of the article you can see the lower part of the tile which must've been exposed to the weather.

My eyes may deceive me but I seem to see non-random patterns on the lower half that look like they could also be cursive writing. I wonder whether someone could image the tile with lidar or a scanner or maybe do a sonic density scan across the surface to see whether anything pops out.

Perhaps the tile was used as a flat writing surface. A note may have been written on a piece of paper that was on top of the tile at the time.