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

I can remember our office getting its first fax machine. one of the partners tried to send a pound note through it to his friend. He seemed to think the pound note would dematerialise and come out on the other side.

I worked in the HQ of a big company and in the morning the tea trolley came round with freshly baked scones and cakes.

Someone mentioned Macros, I remember those!
I also worked flextime but not civil service. The machines were on the walls throughout the office. We used to put each other's in to click up more hours.
The thing about appraisals and monitoring etc is that, in those days, there was NO accountability in the public sector, none at all. Maybe it's gone too far the other way?

My first office job was in the civil service. The whole organisation was a homage to driving itself along on a giant wave of self perpetuated paperwork, photocopying and tea.

PMSL about this and about how much times have changed. The paperwork is now electronic, we scan more than we copy, and we drink more coffee than tea.

Loved the civil service flexitime. We had a groper who resided in the stationery office. You had to brace yourself to go in there for a pen as he kind of blocked the escape route. Strangely we never reported it;the eighties were odd like that. I also spent all day surrounded by fag smoke and had many an argument about opening the windows.

Oh yes, Civil Service flexi was wonderful- managed to get 2 extra flexi days a month off and you could "borrow" on your flexi.

We could also make all the private phone calls we wanted, although after a year or so, we had a memo round asking if the blokes could refrain from ringing the bookies or 0898 numbers.

I was a civil servant, also signed the Official Secrets Act.
There was a senior manager who was a known groper. He met his match in Doris the typist. He groped. She grabbed and twisted. She told the whole office and he kept his hands to himself forever after.

We worked flexi time. You had to write the time you arrived and left on a sheet and if you ended up in credit you could take the time off. Later a machine was introduced where you stuck a key in at the door and it calculated your time. It broke down at least once a week.

I worked in a mainly male environment for a while, one thing I do remember were the topless page 3 posters everywhere. Don't think that'd be allowed now.

I also worked for BT in the early 90s, dealing with customers who hadn't paid their bills. There was a lot of writing letters and talking on the phone. I was also in charge of a work experience girl who was scared of making phone calls. After she left, I found out that she had just hidden all of her cases and only pretended to speak to customers and I got a bollocking because all those customers had been ignored for weeks!

Lots and lots of filing!

Does anyone remember Luncheon Vouchers?

I still get Luncheon Vouchers! I didn't realise they weren't used in the UK any more. I also have to clock in and out at work. We also have to send faxes to communicate with my children's school as they don't have email and, despite having worked for 20 years for the same place, I have never once been appraised! Once more mumsnet reminds me that living in Italy is very much like living in a timewarp!

You just did what you were paid to do and no one expected you to endlessly analyse it.

Oh yes! You just did your job. I miss that. Now we work under a microscope. Constantly jobs are redefined, rationalised and in the state of flux. You darent go on leave cos when you come back everything is different.

My first office job was in the civil service. The whole organisation was a homage to driving itself along on a giant wave of self perpetuated paperwork, photocopying and tea.

So sorry about typos. Phone has mind of its own

Not office as such, (I worked in NHS clinical dept in 70s and 80s)
When a consultant carried out his ears round evwryone on the ward had to be quiet. Patients beds were immaculate and all nurses stood reverently by. Patients were barely acknowledged as the team gathered around and discussed them. May have got a cursory 'how are we' from the Registrar.

Outpatient clinics stopped for morning coffee and biscuits or afternoon tea with sandwiches.

We wore a uniform and went out to far flung parts of a huge hospital sites wearing those heavy read lined nurses' coats.

All tests results were photocopied and every patient had an A5 envelope somewhere in an enormous filing system. You took turns doing this filing, patient name and hospital number written on front, initial test request card and test results kept. Some patients had tatty bulging envelopes others only ever the one.
Everyone hated filing so loads of envelopes lay on top of the filing cabinets until someone set about filing them. Data protection .... what was that?
We welcomed the YTS scheme as this filing became part of their job.

Agreed with pp no targets, no appraisals, a quick competency test once a year and then pay rise confirmed.
I did however earn around £52 a month

I had forgotten

No appraisals. No competencies

You started at point whatever on the pay grade

3 weeks bonus in the summer
3 weeks bonus at xmas

Payrise once a year regardless of anything. One year it was 15 percent! Suspect inflation was raging though!

There was a big growth in call centres too wasn't there? I remember being surprised when I couldn't find the phone number for my local bank.... Or local anything or the person dealing with you account anywhere....

Work used to be fun, back in the day. Best of all was no targets, no appraisals, no fecking competencies. You just did what you were paid to do and no one expected you to endlessly analyse it. I remember the horror of my more senior colleagues when appraisals were introduced, in about 1991.

And it was the endless postal strikes in the late 80s that was the reason that fax machines took off.
The first one we had was the one where the ink on the paper disappeared after 3 months

I worked in insurance claims 1988-now

First job

Claims register. Big book all claims recorded in with carbon copy torn off and posted to head office.
Index cards- written out and filed in card index drawers alphabetically. So if Mr Smith phoned up without a claim number it could be found
Paper file with doc in held together with lethal file pins
Typists. For standard letters we would write down para numbers and they would type them
Dictaphones for dictating letters onto tape.
Loads of clerical staff to file and pull post
If we needed to check an accident location layout we went and found it in our cars. Drew a scale plan and took photos which we took to Boots to be developed which we got back days later
See also people endlessly smoking in the office, ingrained sexism and casual racism.
You could turn a radiator on if it was cold and open a window if it was hot.

Now. Every task is done electronically (google street view fab). Smoking is done outside. Permanently too hot or cold due to aircon. 75 percent of the work is done in India.

Fascinating thread. Great idea OP

I also remember the "computer room " it was a very mysterious place that only a select few were allowed to enter.

Now called a datacentre, still air-conditioned, and we still don't let just anyone enter. You're not missing much, though. No natural light, lines of racked servers, quite noisy because of all the fans. It is one of the least favourite parts of my job. If you have everything on the cloud, it's still like that, just massive, massive datacentres with Internet connections.

I do miss the smell of freshly Banda'd exercise sheets.

I did typing as a 6th form elective - "girls of your calibre won't be secretaries," but girls of that calibre had to pay someone to type up their final year dissertations, if they hadn't learned to type, and couldn't get temping work as easily.

I used to have to type up library catalogue cards (and them file them in the card catalogue) - I was working in a medical library, and I still sometimes type -la rather than -al (right hand stronger than left). I had to redo any number of cards - medical, biological, physical, chemical, virological, bacteriological, haematological... almost every card had at least one -al suffix on it.

oh yes and shared the office with a chain smoker... what fun!

I used a 'word processor' when they were the latest thing!

Haven't read any other replies yet.

My office job started in '87. We smoked, the outgoing post reeked of cigarette smoke. Typed on a manual typewriter, all claims were written out by hand and posted to the manufacturers. We had to use the phone to communicate. No emails. When we first had a fax machine we couldn't believe how bloody marvellous it was. Think we then progressed to a word processor. Possibly only 2001/2 when we started using computers, I remember one lady ringing and asking for our website address, I had the look of Jen from the IT Crowd and promptly ended the call.

oh yes and we had to lick stamps and envelopes