For those of you who worked in an office in 1960's - 1980's

Ah - pricing guns. Fond memories of price gun fights or silently sticking labels to someone else's back and seeing how many you could attach before they noticed.

^PRG III, sorry...

My first job involved programming for a logistics firm on an old IBM mainframe called S/38 I believe, and the language was called "RPG IV" (it had nothing to do with role playing games, but stood for report program generator). It was absolutely horrific. You didn't write in sentences like in more modern programming languages, but it was position based so it depended on in which "column" (position) you placed some signs what kind of meaning they carried. During the lunch break me and my colleagues were openly scouring the papers for other employment in order to leave that job as soon as possible. I was newly employed at that firm, and was sort of forbidden to speak to the client about my work when the client was around (I think the firm had charged for three experts but we were just two experts and one rookie=me). This was just before the slump in the early 1990's so the job market was still quite good and I managed to wriggle out of there but in hindsight my next job was sort of a "out of the frying pan into the fire" experience, but that's a topic for another day.

They still use pricing guns in the local grocery stores though.

Happydays wrote: "I took letters down in shorthand."

I also know how to write in shorthand! A skill seldom used nowadays. Haven't taken any letters though (apart from my own).

Lol, Alpha, the pricing gun was the most fun ever. And working on a proper till with keys, like in Open all Hours.

Ecclestiastes, you have to explain what "pricing up tins of beans with a gun" means, it's like a stapler but with price tags coming out, not an actual "gun" ...

I long for an 'old style' job like the ones I used to have. I miss sitting on a stool in a smoky kiosk, reading a novel while waiting for the next customer. I miss pricing up tins of beans with a gun. I miss folding, cutting and sticking paper, and going on errands, and doing the 'ring round' for orders in the morning.

I miss easy work

I keep coming back to this thread, because I have a real nostalgia for the way work used to be. Jobs were way more physical before IT took over - even clerical jobs. Lots of wandering around, filing, looking for stuff, going to the post office etc. It's no surprise that the obesity epidemic took off at the same time as jobs became almost entirely sedentary.

or got the doctor to write something else on the sick note.

Rumor had it, that one man at the office I worked in (early 90s) had been signed off for two weeks after his wife died suddenly. He had young kids to care for and the 3 days' leave he was given didn't cover what time he needed.

Then, a couple of years later he applied for a promotion, having been a consistent reliable employee ever since. He got turned down because his mental health problems would make him unable to take the pressure of the job!

I knew him/the company well enough to think this was probably true, but obviously never saw the HR files. So, I can't say for sure that it was true, but this kind of story was very normal.

Eastmids
I may be very naïve but I cannot remember anyone going off with stress back then. Or long term sick. I suppose there must have been though.

Employment rights were much weaker.
They were just fired.

I remember a colleague who once told about the early days, when he was a computer programmer and there were only three compilations a day, morning, midday, and evening. They typed out the program lines on punch cards. He hurried with his little box of cards to be in time for the lunch compilation, but tripped and fell and all the cards were spread out at random on the floor. (It would be the equivalent for a programmer to have a random number generator reshuffle all the coded lines inside a program). He then spent days or at least hours trying to recapitulate and sort his program lines/cards.... This was the most awful memory he had out of a thirty year (or more) career as a programmer, he told us.

Been thinking about this thread whilst fighting the masses in Tesco.

I may be very naïve but I cannot remember anyone going off with stress back then.
Or long term sick. I suppose there must have been though.

Used a manual typewriter to type letters. Mistakes had to be tippexed and used carbon paper to make copies during typing.

Lots and lots of filing. Lots of telephone calls. Walking from one dept to another searching for things.

Hospital records were a nightmare to work in pre computer. I think offices were more social though because lack of email meant talking to your colleagues more.

Cigarette breaks were fun too. We used to have smoking rooms or just smoke in the office.

I had luncheon vouchers in my first job in 1982!

Did they even have correction fluid in 1957?

The first time I came across it was in 1977.

Oh treasury tags ..I love them, short long, medium, with little rubber spacers without ... happy days.

We still have them in this house! They're great little things.

Started in 1957. I took letters down in shorthand. Typed on a big imperial typewriter. Used correction fluid if you made a mistake. Answered the phone, did some filing. A couple of years later took rents in cash, marked them down in a book and typed survey reports while answering the telephone.

My first office job (2004) was in an office where everyone smoked at their desk. On my first day I was shown my desk, the photocopier and asked to select an ashtray from the kitchen.
They were astounded I diddnt smoke.
I always wonder how the smoking ban hit them, was only 2 years later.

why was the early computer made as paper green and white bands?

Partly to make it more readable, I always assumed, especially since I've had to read through output on paper like that which wasn't lined at all.

Oh yes I remember when our office got a computer. Only one mind you and our boss had it. We were in awe. And he didn't have a clue how to use it

Oh treasury tags ..I love them, short long, medium, with little rubber spacers without ... happy days.

Simple question that I am probably an idiot not to know, but why was the early computer made as paper green and white bands?

Was it just our NHS office or did you all have you names written on card and sellotaped to the end of your pen, pencil, ruler.and on top of your hole punch and stapler?
(Maybe we works for a very anal manager)

Slightly off topic, but we got Luncheon Vouchers.

As a young lawyer in the early 1980s, I remember how exciting it was when we got our first computer for legal research. It had an actual telephone modem that sat in a cradle and made all sorts of noises as it hooked up to the data bases. It was clunky and not particularly user friendly, but I loved working with it.

And yes, yes to the keyboard commands for word processing in the pre-mouse days. I hated the mouse when first learning it, just as I hate every new version of Word.