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

[Cookerhood]

Yes, works canteen too. The "special" on a Wednesday was £1.50.
Mid 80s

[ILoveShula]

Late 80s. It was announced that women could wear trousers to the office but no ski pants, leggings or jeans.

Printed memos were quite normal.

[Etulosba]

Smoke. Lots of it. So bad at times that it was difficult to see across the office when the sun shone through the windows.

Outgoing phone calls only allowed from the pay phone in the foyer. No incoming calls allowed unless a dire emergency.

[howdidigettobe50something]

Love these! Yes when I first started teaching, going to the pub on a Friday lunchtime was common, whilst some staff members went more often to smoke.
At the end of every half term we also used to have a shared lunch at school and there were always 3 wine boxes...one each of white, rosé and red. And the infant children used to do PE in their vest and pants!

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

Smoking in the office
Hand written reports
Lots of filiing (and lost files)
One computer for very important stuff
Luncheon Vouchers
Male managers suggesting I bought a nice skirt to wear for work.

[DuesToTheDirt]

Sending out CVs printed on nice thick paper. Getting replies!

[howdidigettobe50something]

And reading about lack of computers. We had to produce worksheets on a Banda machine. It was really messy and there was a queue to use it every morning.

[HairyHocks]

A dedicated tea lady brought tea and coffee to your desk.

It was ok to get a bit pissed at lunchtime and go back to work.

[museumum]

Late 90s all work done on computer but graphic design files were too big to email so all design iterations were sent back and forth across London in hard copy by bike courier. End products were saved on zip disc with some kind of external zip disc drive???

[LaundryFairy]

When my uni got a computer room in 1989, they were not configured for use in any way: you had to bring your own copy of DOS ( disc operating system) on a floppy disc, set it up, then install your own copy of whatever program you wanted to run. Took about 30 minutes to get going each time.

[OccaChocca]

Yes to most of these.

Much happier times IME.

[Saz12]

Having to plug your laptop into the fax modem to get a dial up connection from other offices.

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

Oh Hairy for two glorious weeks I was that lady. I also had cake and chocolate bars.
It was a temp job, I didn't get fired :)

[anniepanniepears123]

When I went for an interview for my first job after leaving school in 1974 I was told that women couldn't wear trousers and could only wear rollers in their hair by special permission on a Friday

[user143677433]

@museumum

Late 90s all work done on computer but graphic design files were too big to email so all design iterations were sent back and forth across London in hard copy by bike courier. End products were saved on zip disc with some kind of external zip disc drive???

I still have an external Zip drive!

[ProfYaffle]

When I met dh in 2000 he worked in IT so had posh e-mail you could actually send externally. I had internal only e-mail, external access only granted to very senior managers.

One of those senior managers would print all his e-mails, hand write a reply on them and hand them to his secretary to type up and send back!

[user1487194234]

Pub most lunch times
Friday afternoons virtually a write off
Everyone smoked
Mixing with the bosses got me my promotion,which does sound bad but I didn’t do anything very bad ,and I have had a fab career for the last 30 years

[Annasgirl]

Smoking in the office - I hated it!!!

Pin ups of naked girls on the wall of the print room - I worked for a National Newspaper and was often sent to the print room by my boss (the Ad Director) to send corrected ads to the print manager. I had to walk across a room surrounded by photos of naked women while old men leered at me.

Photocopying - oh I hated having to photocopy.

Drinking at lunch - our Advertising Sales Director never returned to the office on Friday afternoon!!!

Work canteen which served proper dinner at lunch time (great as it saved me cooking)

Coffee break in work canteen with homemade scone (oh, I remember how great they were)

We had a mail room and mail delivery people (my DSis got a Summer job as a mail delivery girl - delivering mail around the building ).

Secretaries for every manager!

No one knew how to use powerpoint. When I learned I became a god .

Every day sexism was not only tolerated, if you complained you were seen as a prude.

[RumHoney]

We had email but we'd still type (or dictate) a memo, print it out, put it in an internal mail envelope and send it to the recipient.

I used to get sent next door to companies House for microfiche versions of company records and spent hours on the microfiche reader printing off the relevant pages.

[harknesswitch]

I'd forgotten all about the tea trolley

Admin girls who did all the filing all day long

[ArosGartref]

Drinking at lunchtime was encouraged by the boss.

Lots of letters to customers. We employed a man whose sole job was to stuff envelopes.

[harknesswitch]

The brown internal envelopes, the type with holes in them and boxes to write the name and dept it went to

[HighlandCowbag]

Having a phone with a number on my desk so people could ring and contact me directly. I worked in a bank and had business cards with my actual phone number printed on it.

A smoking room. Paper files of customer application forms. Manually checking signatures of cheques over a certain amount.

I started in 1997 and by 2002/03 everything was automated. I remember older counter staff getting very upset they would have a screen and mouse at their workstation because they had never used anything beyond bank terminals and they still remembered the days when they didn't even have those.

I remember the bag man coming afternthe 3.30pm cut off, they had to take all the debit/credit vouchers from the sub branches to the machine room in the main branch and if it wasn't ready there would be trouble as the machine room staff couldn't leave until everything was processed and then the overtime would start.

We also had several firms who would phone through with a wages order, so it might be £3578.52 but broken down into the right denominations so they could fill the wages packets. (I once gave £20 notes out instead of £10 and my till was £800 down until the wages clerk came rushing back in with it).

[inmyslippers]

Smoking room

[SusannahSophia]

Smoking at the desk. Japanese company and the Japanese staff (men no Japanese women) all seemed to smoke.
No emails. Handwritten faxes as typing pools had gone by then. A few telex machines, but faxes had made them virtually obsolete.
Very few PCs. I had a mainframe terminal, a VT 101, black and white.
Big reports printed out overnight on fanfold green and white paper with sprocket holes.
Some people had pagers.
Pool cars for visiting suppliers. In which people smoked. Yuk.
10% pay rises!