Well, that's what gets used today - even have a USB one I can plug into my laptop. But, no, I mean one of these:
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That one is like the inexpensive personal one I had in college. Should be in a box somewhere upstairs in my office - had it for almost 40 years. Had a nicer one at my first firm - we still had to "run tape" on handwritten ledgers and 14 column worksheets, then tape the tape into the workpaper files as part of the audit trail to show the worksheets were properly vouched.
Sometimes you ended up in a workspace that didn't have room to the right - some cubicles had the under-desk cabinet to the left, for example - so you were shoved against a wall immediately to your right. As such, you either had to crane to see the workpapers to put the 10-key on your right and sit kind of twisted and side-saddle in your chair, or if you were proficient enough, you could put the workpapers right in front of you where they ought to be and have the 10-key on the left. My office cubicle was that way, so "to the left" became my norm. This was actually a little faster for me because I could do the adding on the left and make my tickmarks with my right hand instead of adding, grabbing the pencil, marking, then dropping the pencil and moving to the next column or row. When you're working through a big enough set of workpapers, the extra 10 or 15 seconds adds up (so to speak) over the course of a day.
Yeah - just a stupid human trick that makes no sense to anyone that wasn't an accountant at least 30 years ago, but you did say "don't think anyone else would really appreciate".
Been meaning to just let it roll, but I keep finding myself awake at weird hours so haven't changed it yet. Was doing something entirely unrelated, but just lost track of time and suddenly daylight was peering through the shades.
And today's collection will put me over another "million" mark, so I'll just stay up, organize files, and hit the sack after I get it.