Things where you look back and think "that really was a different world"

[StealthPolarBear]

I am only in my early 40s so young and sprightly.
When I was even younger I had a job in a dentists office. Basically sending reminder letters out, printjng the letters, and addressing the envelopes. The dental records didn't have title on them so I asked what I should do. The response was i a woman's husband is also registered at the practice, she's a Mrs.
So I did that. Mrs for those respectable married women, and using my teenage innovation I decided any where I was unsure would be 'Ms'.
I got such a telling off. Apparently people complained as it looked like they were divorced.
There are times when the 90s seem only yesterday, and times like remembering that when they seem to have more in common with the victorian era than the present day!

First office job in 1987 as a junior secretary in a law firm and I sat opposite a lady who chain smoked. Our typewriters were back to back and she used to balance her ash tray on the top! Oh and I remember all the male partners were addressed as Mr!

Meeting someone in a club and using an eyeliner to write their phone number on the back of your hand, that's if they were even 'on the phone'.

At least we didn't have to bathe in a tin bath once a week in the kitchen like my Dad did!

@NameEight ha!

I used to go round the school and take orders for sandwiches off the teachers and collect their money. Then me and my friend would walk out of school at lunch time and up onto the main road to the bakery to fetch the lunches. We were 9!

@TartanJumper

In 1998, I got my first mobile.The text limit was so many characters and if someone rang you mid-text, it cleared. (this was where you had to press the numbers three times to get the letters so it took a long time!). My sister used to call me if she saw me texting to annoy me, and vice versa.

My Nokia 3310 held 5 (I think) texts at a time - once full you had to delete a text before another would come in. And there was no ‘chain’ of messages, just one at a time so you couldn’t look back through the whole conversation

@UpHillandDownAle
Lol at History being 'His Story'
History maybe sexist but the word isn't. It evolved from an ancient Greek verb historia that means “to know,”

@Wincarnis

Being able to visit the cockpit and talk to the flight crew.. Did it a couple of times in 1990s. Unheard of now!

You can still visit on the ground but locks were introduced after 9/11.

Going on holiday in the UK. Phone up a hotel, if they had space, you would send a letter with a cheque for the first night.

I worked in a law firm in 2005 and all the lawyers smoked at their desks. This was in Paris though, tbf.

I also worked in a pizza takeaway when I was a student in the early noughties. My boss used to smack my arse whenever I bent down to get under the counter. I'd hit the roof now but back then just thought it was perfectly fine and normal.

There's nothing wrong with being divorced now thank goodness. Also DS aged 10 is doing a sponsored week in the 80s at some point. He will not use anything that wasn't around in the 80s (within reasonable limits obviously because of school etc). But no laptop, iPad, all day kids telly etc. He will have to get a book if he needs to know something. We will buy a TV magazine for him to look up what's on, have a planned movie night to simulate having to go to blockbuster rather than an impromptu one on sky. And he can play with Rubik's cube and action man instead of on my singing monsters. It will be really interesting to see what he thinks.

Long distance route planning before Google maps. Either with a map book or my grandfather used to phone the AA and they would post out printed directions.

I remember doing my a level chemistry coursework on a typewriter and using the library for research.

Back in the 1990s there were hotels, restaurants and bars where I lived that wouldn't allow female customers to wear trousers. There were still those pubs that only allowed women in the lounge, never the saloon. One of my lecturers went into a rural pub in Yorkshire where they refused to serve her as women shouldn't go into pubs in the daytime.

When I was young you would see newsreel clips from the 30s and 40s where people spoke in that strange, clipped way that seemed totally artificial. Now if you see news footage from the 80s the people in it also speak in a style that has a quaint, old-fashioned quality.

My friend and I have a system where we text each other the words "three rings" to let each other known we're safely home after a night out. Because we're hilarious. Obviously.

I often think that the early 2000s were just a couple of years ago. In my head it goes. Born (late 70s). 80s lasted forever. 90s even longer. Millennium and then yesterday. I have to keep reminding myself that it was 20 years ago and that so much has changed in that time.

Job hunting is another thing which seems so odd now. There was an employment supplement in the paper on a Thursday and I remember the excitement or disappointment depending on how thick or thin the supplement was each week. Often you would have to call up or even write to the employer to request a full job description and then send off your application by post. My parents refused to have a computer in the house so I typed my CV and all my application letters on a typewriter (2001/2). Lots of companies stated "no on-spec applications" much to my dad's annoyance - he wanted me to pound the streets and walk into offices to ask for jobs rather than doing it all by post which he thought was so impersonal. It's even worse now that his grandkids tell him about applying online.

Ah yes the primary school coach to and from primary school, an hour each way, age 4. No doubt that still happens, but hopefully not the following...
No seat belts, three children to two seats and a driver who walloped you with his newspaper if you misbehaved.
Also one elderly male attendant employed to keep the peace, who gave the children sweets - with no parental permission or allergy checks.

@EsmaCannonball

Back in the 1990s there were hotels, restaurants and bars where I lived that wouldn't allow female customers to wear trousers. There were still those pubs that only allowed women in the lounge, never the saloon. One of my lecturers went into a rural pub in Yorkshire where they refused to serve her as women shouldn't go into pubs in the daytime.

When I was young you would see newsreel clips from the 30s and 40s where people spoke in that strange, clipped way that seemed totally artificial. Now if you see news footage from the 80s the people in it also speak in a style that has a quaint, old-fashioned quality.

Yes! I have noticed this, even in clips of people speaking in the late 90s. We watched some of the very early Location Location Locations that are on All4 and it’s noticeable even then - I think 1999/2000?

And yes to directions.
I started driving in 2001, and didn't have a mobile or Satnav. I used to get the road map out, write a list of roads out, then go onto Google, get a map up, zoom in and print screen. Very handy when visiting friends at university, but tricky to do on your own!

@SirSamuelVimes

Oh that reminds me - taking sixth formers out drinking on school trips! I went on a trip to Belgium when I was a young teacher and my job in the evening was to accompany the sixth formers round the pubs so they'd be supervised and so (theoretically) not get too pissed. The drinking age in Belgium then was 16 so it was decided we'd not be able to stop them drinking as it was legal but it might be better if they had company!

This would have been 2008 / 9 ish? I'm sure I read something earlier this year about a teacher getting struck off for doing similar!

The drinking age in Belgium is still 16 - well for wine and beer at least. I was most impressed that dd could buy me wine in the supermarket and saving me a trip.

We used to have a tea lady back in the early 90s. She would wheel her trolley with tea, coffee and bacon rolls in the morning, cake in the afternoons round all the offices. I think they should bring this back.

An early job, my first office-based role. It was late 90s and I had access to a computer that had internet. I asked to use it in my lunch hour to be met with 'but that costs lots of money, you'll need higher permission'. I'm not sure if it really cost a lot, or if it was so alien to my supervisor that she just panicked! I had a tiny browse then spent the rest of the time playing solitaire.

My children can't quite understand that I was born in the 1900s. That seems like Dickensian times to them!

Forty years ago when I was at secondary school I had no inkling at all of how computers worked. I didn't understand how the information was stored or processed - it was a complete mystery to me.

And I didn't really care. But when I was doing the first year of A-levels, they offered us the chance to do Computing O-level, and I thought I better had plug that gap in my knowledge.

When I first started doing it, if my (very simple) programs didn't work, I would SLAP the computer and try again. I think I thought it was like the old-fashioned tellies with valves, where slapping it could sometimes work.

@Graphista
My most shocking though is that I had a Saturday job, with my mum at her estate agency. I was 13. I carried out the 'accompanied' viewings to empty houses! Viewers would book an appointment, turn up at the office in their car. I would merrily get in, go with them to the empty properties and they would drop me back....

Was this before or after Suzy lamplugh?!

Before. Horrifying.

Can you imagine sending your 13 year daughter off in cars with complete strangers, with just a landline telephone number as contact.

And speaking of slapping ... my 20 year old DD didn't know what a 'slapper' was. I told her and she said it sounded like Victorian slang.

@converseandjeans

- Making mix tapes for mates

• At uni one phone box for around 50 people & mates used to ring it and ask for so&so from number 21
• writing letters to friends
• having no privacy as the only phone was in the hallway
• smoking on the bus/in cinema etc
• getting pissed & snogging someone with no photo evidence
• wearing leggings & DMs as a going out outfit
• everyone driving normal sized cars instead of SUVs
• no lip fillers or filtered photos
• my first office job had a post girl who just walked round all day passing notes between people & delivering letters & this was mid 90s

I miss the 80s and 90s

My first job was a post girl! I loved it!!!

The other day I was telling my teenagers about my first proper job back in the fairly recent past (1997) as a recruitment consultant.

We all smoked in the office - 6 of us chain smoking all day long with ashtrays on our desk! We smoked when candidates came in to register, or when clients came for meetings. I don’t remember ever thinking it was smoky or anyone ever commenting. Seems grim now!

We had one computer in the corner of the office which we each took one ‘turn’ per week on to type up and print out letters to our clients. No computers on desk, no emails. We used our fax machine quite a lot, though.

We cold called prospective clients every morning using the phone book / yellow pages to get business numbers.

@UpHillandDownAle "And don’t get me onto the word History! I mean, it is literally HIS STORY!!"

Not true.

The word history comes from the Ancient Greek ἱστορία[16] (historía), meaning "inquiry", "knowledge from inquiry", or "judge".

source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History#Etymology