What was the norm when you started work

[harknesswitch]

Inspired by another thread, what things were the norm when you started work that would now be unbelievable.

When my Mum told her employer she was pregnant, in 1972, they sacked her

When I started work you could smoke at your desk and we were even given branded ashtrays

No email, everything was printed out by a work processor and filled in by hand. We had one of those personalised ink stamps to use which we signed so they knew who had filled in the form

We used to do loads of coke. Mountains and mountains of coke.

Huge manufacturing plant in the Midlands in 1977.

A bit of backstabbing but most people were friendly and kind. Many of the older blokes had been in the war and had horror stories although they generally didn't talk about it.

Works bar and social club both open at lunch time with some daily regulars. Staff canteen and also a batch bar serving incredible bacon batches in the morning.

Lots of wolf whistles etc if a woman went on the shop floor, but similar comments and remarks to blokes going in certain offices. It was generally good natured and there were many couples getting together and getting married in addition to a fair amount of "hanky panky". No skirts only rules, although older staff had firm ideas on what constituted proper attire.

Lots of pranks and tomfoolery. There was a way to jump in on internal phone calls, so you could drop the odd arse or willy into somebody else's phone call.

Unions were strong and working conditions good for the time, although relations later deteriorated.

Young people could buy their own house although multiple property ownership was virtually unknown. You could get a job with 4-5 'O' levels and further training was available. Degrees were not normal and I really do wonder what useful training modern degrees actually provide.

The past was definitely a different country, but there was so much good stuff going on.

Some of these ,
My first full time job in late 90’s was in a very male dominated place it was a market wholesalers and I used to walk through in the morning with wolf whistles I hated it .
Smoking in the office , 1 shared computer that 2 people worked on at once and one person would shout the account numbers and the other would type . We all had one of those calculators with the till roll to add up the daily sales .
A few years ago I took a job and they handed me one of those calculators. I was like I use excel I used those calculators 20+ years ago but they were practically insisting. Some companies don’t like change, I didn’t stay there very long .

Yes to the fax machines with the shiny paoer. It came out rolled up and you had to use a paperweight to hold it down to straighten it out.

Love this thread. I started working in 1994 as a bank teller for the largest bank in Australia. They had started moving from government owned to privatisation in 1990 so when i joined it was still very unionised and some old fashioned set ups, but times were soon to change.

In Australia you'd get "roster days off", which was a day off per month on top of your annual leave. It was standard in unionised jobs.

As mentioned up thread, we used to get staff circulars with a list of names stapled to the front, when you read it you crossed your name off and passed it to someone who'd not read it.

One of the circulars was the job vacancies. I used to look at bank teller jobs from all around Australia and wonder what it would be like to live in those far flung towns. I was only 18 and barely out of school so didn't have the confidence to apply. The older staff always said to wait for the vacancies in Tennant Creek or Alice Springs branches. They would send you for two years, put you up in staff quarters, non stop parties. Plus you were in the proper outback, it sounded like the wild west. Only for the young and energetic.

All employees were graded so you knew what you could apply for, as each job was set at a grade. I realised quickly i didn't want to be a teller so i looked for head office work. I got my first proper office job. It consisted of arriving at my desk in the morning to a dot matrix printed report about a foot high. I had to pull it apart into sections for various staff and departments. I would then walk around 4 stories of a building delivering the reports. I would then walk around in the afternoon to collect the same reports after they'd been reviewed. The reports were then filed away. There was a lot of filing in those days. You would walk into the filing room, the shelves would be on rails and you would turn massive wheels to move them to the side.

When i think back then it was how you could get your foot in the door easily. I started working in banking 5 days after high school finished. 27 years later i have a comfortable (but extremely dull) middle management job at a city firm. Now days to get in you need a decent result from a decent university, even operations roles. There's no foot in the door jobs, admin roles are almost job existent. And if i did try to take on a school leaver HR or upper management would block it. Everything is too serious now

I had a weekend/holiday job in a garden centre cafe when I was 15 (early 90s). I was good at it, so I got left to run it on busy weekends so my boss could have the weekend off! Cooking full roast dinners and everything!

It was fantastic experience though; 15 year olds are a lot more competent than they are given credit for.

We used to give out small bits of equipment as all complex patients were in care homes.
All patient records were written on paper.
All leavers were dunked in the patient's bath which was filled with anything you could think of.