Things you no longer see/do in the workplace

[TheGrumpiest]

I always really like those threads about food/shops that no longer exist, so I thought I'd start one about the work place. I joined the workforce in the early 90s working for quite large companies.

Luncheon Vouchers - loved these! Like Monopoly money.
Tea trolley lady that came round twice a day. Tea and coffee was free. Small packet of biscuits 5p.
Strippers 😲 A milestone birthday? Getting married? = stripper in the office at lunch time .
Rolls of fax paper on the floor every morning. You had to seperate and tear out each fax with a ruler.
Endless Memorandums with huge circulation lists typed out. You had to cross your name off and pass on to the next name once you had read it!
Friday lunch time = pub. People got quite tipsy.
Lack of HR type processes/concept of people management/development etc. People were just asked to not come back the next day if deemed unsuitable... One lady saw her own (unique) job advertised in the local paper and realised her time was up 😲

BTW these aren't necessarily things I miss about the workplace. Just things that don't exist anymore or not acceptable! Tell us yours!

Mortgage companies still use faxes- they’re more secure than email.

Haha - forgot about Snopake. Two office juniors once sent off for Snopake t-shirts which said "Cover your boobs with Snopake". They were called in to the boss's PA's office to be told they were not suitable office attire!😂

When I first started teaching in 1982 you could smoke anywhere in the staffroom - we hung coats etc in there and they stank of smoke. Later on we had a designated smoking room and then eventually the poor smokers had to go off site in their free period and smoke under a bridge. Sometimes they met kids out there smoking too.

And these!!

I started my first 'proper' job in 1991.

I can remember the excitement when a 'mobile telephone' was purchased for staff to take with them if they had to travel anywhere.

It came with its own trolley!

Proper Christmas parties which started at noon in the main office and absolutely everyone got hammered, and snuck off into the other smaller offices with whoever they fancied. God they could be a bit wild but absolutely were fun.

whiteboards

Where I work, we still have blackboards as well as whiteboards. Loads of them.

Actual telephones on desks and computers rather than laptops.

We still have boozy lunches and a drink trolley so that one is still going in some industrys.

I'm loving this.

We had a tea lady who came round twice a day.

Having to walk to a different building on the other side of the site as only one copier in the whole company had the ability to print or copy A3 or colour.

Head of HR going on a walkabout to pull people up for dress code - men all needed to be wearing a tie.

Having to chauffer senior managers when you drove anywhere so they could be on the phone and reading their diary/writing stuff. Terrifying to be driving expensive powerful car belonging to the boss instead of my ancient Ford fiesta.

Having to read the boss's emails to him when he phoned in from the car in the days before smart phones (and before he got an XDA).

Always had to be in on Christmas Eve but we never did work, Buck’s Fizz and buffet, faff about talking to pals and people started gradually leaving around 10am if they had worked some time up.

flexi time, miss it a lot

free packed dinner of roll, crisps, Fritz and drink if doing 2 or more hours overtime on a week night. Double time at the weekend, triple on bank hols.

@TheGrumpiest did you used to work for the wolf of Wall Street! It sounds unreal!

@GCAcademic I'm in sports bras everyday I give no fucks anymore. Bras and heels are dead to me.

We've still got corded telephones on desks but they are brand new VOIP ones. Still have a stationery cupboard, most have desktop computers rather than laptops as we don't generally WFH and we all have our own desks. I photocopied something yesterday (on a printer/scanner/copier not an old style photocopier).

🙋🏼‍♀️ under 40 here and I do know how to use a fax machine 🤨 my works one has just gone to the fax machine scrapyard in the sky though 😔

@limitededitionbarbie the CEO was probably a wannabe 'Wolf of Wolf Street" type. In reality, more Emu of Essex😂 Had a very long neck.

Putting the strippers to one side, it was a fun place to work! I have really fond memories of living and working in London in 90s. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do so.

We used to 'bike' documents over to clients back in the day.

I'd completely forgotten about fundraisers like Children in Need etc ... we used to have great big 'charity days' (in the office) & it was great fun and raised a lot of money .. now everyone just seems to send a donation via a mobile with no fun or effort involved.
Also social events like the Beaujolais Nouveau race ... does that still happen?

Those were the days eh kiddos

Just been out for a work lunch... No ketchup 'we're an Italian restaurant' (so don't serve roast potatoes?!) where it was extremely polite and awkward. No-one was drunk, or flirting

I miss the 90s

When I first started work I used to take dictation by shorthand. The Gestetner was considered so labour saving too!

I think my first post-school job from mid 1980's is completely gone now.

• Collecting huge bags of mail from the Post Office every day in the 'office runaround car'


• Opening it all by hand using a little electric machine to slice open the envelopes


• Writing up all the cheques and cash revived (!) by hand on a special form with carbon copy for the cashier. It hand to balance 'or else'.


• Adding it all up using a printing calculator and stapling the printout to the page


• Delivering all the mail to all the offices in the building into "In" trays and taking mail from the "Out" trays


• Typing on a golf ball typewriter - there was a different 'ball' for different fonts


• The main photocopier for the whole building was in our Admin office and people had to get our permission to use it. Large print runs were my job- - oh the power!.


• Doing vast amounts of filing of documents, microfiching and faxing.

Also yes to the tea lady for morning & afternoon tea, smoking in offices (horrible) and Page 3 pictures/Perelli calendar of nearly naked girls on walls in loads of men's offices being considered completely normal.

I now feel 103 years old and need a lie down.

Secretary making me a cup of tea and offering to run errands for me at lunchtime. Dictating my documents then the typed letters being brought in in a special book for me to sign. Paper time sheets recording my billable units every day (do not miss that at all). Being sent out with a firm credit card aged 22 for lunch with other young female lawyers entertaining large groups of male bankers more than twice our age Sounds odd now and I should add I’m 45 not 85.

started work in an office in late 80s things I remember is
counting and sorting mountains of documents that had come in by post so much so we were all issued with a rubber finger protector
tea brakes morning and afternoon tea trolley came round people would pull out their knitting etc and the manager would ring a bell when tea break was over
Adding machine
smoking at the desks
computers that were one between two that you activated by sliding what looked like a credit card into the holder at the side
fax machines
microfiche machines
going to a whole seperate department for a photocopy of something
Big red handwritten register that your manager ticked your name off in every morning
hand written flexi sheets that were checked weekly
Bar on top floor of office
the garden shop
subsidised canteen
sovex machine that you put batches etc in that needed to go to another floor
stationary cupboard what a big thing it was to try to get a pen !!
weekly wages in cash in a brown envelope
bank time xmas shopping time half day maundy thursday
hand written reports on you every year
managers that sat in their own little offices that you never saw from one day to the next
hr office actually in the building
typing pool
whole rooms full of keyers keying all the documents that had come in
big bulldog clips for clipping batches of work together
yellow pages
plants on everyone's desks
massive calculators
tippex
treasury tags
most people bought and had a newspaper on their desk
like a different world

People started to abuse it though and you'd hear names of celebrities or cartoon characters being called out. Oh, the fun we had before technology took over

Someone always used to say ‘Elvis has left the building’ on ours. No idea why! Used to make us cry with laughter though.

Ohh my work (private hospital) still have pigeon holes for mail - delivered by post and also used for internal post.

Still have a fax machine and still
Use the brown envelopes to send internal memos, letters etc via the pigeon holes!

In my first job after leaving college we had a smoking room
In the basement - with loads of old sofas, it absolutely stank!! Hated walking by to the filing rooms, everything down there was just smoky and gross.

A laugh....don't get that anymore!

Carbon paper
Clocking in and out
Savings club
Roneo machines
Broadcast system (could call out across the whole company)
Factory floor
Page 3 (and worse) pin ups on the walls
Tea lady
Typewriters
Lunchtime drinking