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

@Sparklingbrook

80s in an office (bank).

Affairs all over the place-everyone knew but didn't seem to care.

A smoking room.

Franking machine which we had to take to the Post Office to have money put on it.

Photocopying involved a sheet of shiny pink paper but I can't remember the exact sequence of paper.

Management would scrutinise all staff cheques.

If necessary customer signatures were checked to signature cards that were made when they opened the account. Seems bizarre now.

I worked in a bank from 2003-2010. We still had signature cards then. And if a person's bank account was based at another branch you had to call up the branch and ask them to fax a copy of the signature card over.

We thought we were so modern when we started using dictaphones and padding the little tapes to the typing pool in a plastic wallet that your typed letters came back in! 🤣

As a couple of posters have mentioned it was so easy to get another job. See something you like in the Evening Standard or Times, call them up or send in CV and get a response within a week. Called in for interview the following week and then told if you had the job a day or two later. Also employment agencies actually found you temp work or real jobs. Not like today. It was all so much easier.

These days it seems that even for the most low paid, shit jobs you have to go through screening as if you are were applying to become an astrophysicist or brain surgeon. Why?

Directors used to pour us all wine or beer on a Friday afternoon. This fun was scuppered by someone getting a drink drive conviction on their way home.

We had insane office parties where there was scandal and gossip.

I spent a lot of time faxing things. Pub lunches at least once a week.

I really miss it now I have a responsible job.

Pneumatic tube system in shop , money went to cashier in basement and change arrived back the same way.

Writing out computer code by hand and sending to data prep girls to punch onto paper tape.

Correcting computer code on paper tape by cutting out the error , splicing the tape, and using a little hand hole punch to put in the correct code.

And yes smoking in the office, nearly all of us.

I do find how work has changed fascinating!

Started work in 2001 (publishing). We used email but we still had authors who did not use email regularly, lots who didn't know how to open a pdf file, and the odd few (older and considered respected in their field) who still typed up manuscripts that we someone then had to make digital.

Proofs still done by posting hard copy - they may still be in book publishing, but that's not the area I am in any more.

Still very much expected to work 9-5, no flexibility for hours, which seems weird now. About 3 years later I joined a company where I first experienced people working slightly different hours, including me as I had to come in a bit late to fit DD's nursery opening hours.

I remember writing on a rolling blackboard when I first started teaching. Staff were allowed to smoke in a specific smoking room. Medium term planning was handwritten on sheets of A3 before being rewritten on another sheet of A3 for the week and then on an A4 plan for each individual lesson. End of year reports were handwritten.

I started teaching in 2003. We still had a smoking room and it was busier than the main staff room.

Just remembered the best bit!
Luncheon Vouchers!

We also used to record behaviour points on slips of paper and put them in a box in reception to be recorded and for detentions to be arranged by admin. All computerised now obvs! Sadly I have to make detention arrangements myself now 🙄

We used excel mail merge to do reports too.

I worked in a call centre for an airline. All airfares had to be worked out manually using papers kept in enormous files.

NHS started 1984.
We clinicians, were allowed to drink alcohol at lunchtime.
Coffee and tea was free
We pretty much didn't bother writing casenotes. Or if we did we wrote stuff like 'as above' 'More of same' etc.
I picked up/cuddled/threw in the air children with abandon. No one thought it odd.
My colleague cried most days at work. No one cared, nor was she ever sacked. We all just ignored.

I started my first job in 2001 and there were definitely not as many pointless meetings as there are now. And meetings about meetings (so it seemed) We had a fax machine, crazy! People regularly went on smoking breaks. The programme we used was all in black and white and, when I think about it, looked like something out of the dark ages. My examples are pretty lame but I can’t think of anything else 😂

My second job, when I went into retail management in the early 90s is the one where conditions have probably changed the most (previous to that I was a hairdresser).

All female staff were referred to as ‘the girls’, regardless of age.

We weren’t allowed to wear trousers.

We were paid weekly in cash.

I used to have to call head office weekly with the stock orders. It was all done verbally and took ages. We didn’t have computers.

As a key holder I had to attend alarm call outs, usually in the middle of the night. If it was a malfunction I’d have to wait until an alarm engineer arrived, which could be hours. If there’d been a break in (we had two in one week just before Christmas one year) I’d have to wait for an alarm engineer, a glazier and also the area manager to visit, and for some reason our area managers always seemed to live in Yorkshire so it took them quite some time to travel to the West Midlands.
Thinking back to it now it was a situation which left you very vulnerable.

Saturday job in Homebase in the 80's - with the green uniform ! On the till had to use the sliding card imprint machine and yes Access cards - telling the Amex users we didn't accept their fancy card did they have another one ?
First proper full time job in the 90's was in a small company where as the MD smoked the whole office was smoking - having to open up computers and clean out the fag dust from the vents.

Snack trolley coming round morning and afternoon, women being expected to organise any food for outings, parties etc. Sharing an office phone between 12 people. Long lunches in the pub.

Women got to leave 15 minutes early to compensate for the time required to put on mandatory make up.

Smoking everywhere.

Boozy lunches were fairly standard.

Even though employed at the same job, tasks assigned by sex.

A general belief that men were better than women at everything except being nice or pretty.

Being fired so the boss could give your job to their niece/best friend's son/etc.

Pictures of naked women up in the office.

OMG those were the days! Smoking in the office, boozy lunches and no meetings! I remember having a typing pool and someone would come round with the trolley emptying your ‘Out tray’. If I wanted an urgent response you had to beg... yes beg... the manager of the typing pool to prioritise your letter. Great memories but the men were vile, and we just had to deal with it

OMG forgot about the tea trolley in the morning!

When you went on holiday you would send a postcard to the office. If you were lucky it arrived before you got back.

I worked in a Uni in the 90s. They had a staff bar and a staff canteen and you could smoke your head off in both. One academic never gave an afternoon class sober.

Worked (quite literally) as a waitress in a cocktail bar in the 80s and was groped relentlessly, pulled onto laps all the time, and suggestive comments were made constantly. I remember one regular, well into his 60s, grabbing 19yo me and whispering through his handlebar moustache that ‘he could give me so much pleasure it would make my toes curl’. Just grim.

Calling people by their surname, rather than first name, or at least managers.

Having proper tea breaks - don’t seem to get that nowadays

Being paid weekly

Ostensibly, there is so much wrong about this thread.
Looking back 30 years plus though, in all honesty, I don’t think I would have changed a single thing because, personally, I had a blast.

@harknesswitch

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

Now used for staff collections. I wonder why they have holes in them?

shorthand for urgent letters
typing letters from mini cassettes for less urgent and a bad day was when you accidently wiped a tape instead of rewinding.
No trousers
Shiny fax paper on which the print faded so you had to photocopy messages
Memos
Carbon copies and tippex