There used to be a time when you just wrapped two fingers around your wrist and counted the bumping blood movements through the body to define your pulse, but no longer. you are now attached to a machine. The machine is also probably doing something else, but somewhere in the illuminations you will find a number showing how high or low your pulse is. This machine was attached to me, but I cannot even remember why. I think it was charging me with electro shocks. testing my nervous state.
FOWC with Fandango: Pulse
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
I was surprised the other day, while hooked up to a machine that could do the job plus multiple others, that a nurse did take my pulse by the manual method you describe. Of course, she’s been a nurse for something like 26 or so years!
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I always have problems to find the right place to take my pulse, As I am still breathing it must be somewhere.
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I can’t find mine most of the time, either, but have one of those machines that gives me blood pressure and pulse. My pulse is outrageously high most of the time.
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Of course I also have one. Forgot I had it.
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