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!

Car garage waiting room or similar with walls bedecked with page 3 girls.

God yes pub team meetings! Oh happy days

Floppy disks
Cds that went in the computer
Going to the bosses house for team drinks
Team away days

• 1st job- weekends age 15 at a pharmacy, whilst still at school and being paid in cash (mainly coins!), in an envelope with a hand written 'pay slip'!

• Smoking rooms in hospitals!

• Having to phone the credit card company if a payment was over £30 when we used those older style credit card machines where you put the card in, and swiped the machine across to make in inprint. Not digital or wifi connected!

• Processing old style film rolls in a machine within the pharmacy! Adjusting the inks and colours myself if too light or dark, and then just pouring the chemicals down the sink!!!

We still use the internal mail envelopes and I believe we still have a fax machine!

Oh wow sounds amazing! You probably have the best stories about all of that!

I am mid forties - I prob seen the last of the bad behaviour. It's funny to think how much the work stories evolve. By the time my daughter is old enough for her own work stories they will all be about Instagram and whatever else.

My first job in a shop we had handwritten receipts with a carbon copy which was put on a spike. The till was a drawer with a huge handle to pull down to open it. All bills were manually added up. We sent metal capsules to the cash office through a vacuum machine for change.

This was in 1985.

Second job in an office. Stacks of filing. Taking the franking machine to be topped up. Friday afternoon drinking. Pay in a small brown envelope. Going to the shops for everyone's lunches.

i work in a solicitor’s office and we still use soooooo many of the things mentioned on here.

I am taking my single hole punch and stash of treasurey tags to my grave with me. (My hole punch has my initials in tippex on it so nobody nicks it).

I used to be a bike courier biking documents all over the city

Has anyone mentioned overhead projectors?

I came on to say "credit card imprinters"

When I left my first teaching job my (native French) Biology teacher friend kindly told me that the two (native French) French teachers always used to snigger at me when I said I was going to use the Banda machine, because “bander” means something rude in French.

Boxes of branded headed paper and matching compliment slips. Don't need those anymore.

I work in a uni. Still have pigeonholes, internal mail envelopes, a guillotine and a binding machine. Our fax machine went only last year.

The only thing I get in my pigeonhole is the odd flyer from Mountain Warehouse! Must have used my work address for delivery at some stage.

Late 1960s: In my first Saturday job I was paid cash in a small brown envelope with the amount written outside. I earned £1 a day, minus 3d for “the stamp” (NI?) so the envelope contained 19 shillings and nine pence.
That shop closed: my second Saturday job was in a school outfitters where cash payments were send in a tube to the accounts section, and the customer’s change was sent back the same way, something like these and these.

Early 2000s. The ease of sending an all staff email, about something like a lost mug. And everyone would reply to all saying they hadn’t seen it. Jokes circulated over an all-staff email with responses.

Once there was a Jamie Oliver cookbook circulated which loads of people printed off in full, you kept finding copies of it for weeks.
Also finding confidential information left on the printer, like a list of names and salaries. And the ensuing scandal.
When someone’s wife/partner/kids would call in on the office phone.
Pub on Friday without question, probably most other days too, there’d be someone there to socialise with, without needing to make plans weeks/months in advance. There was a sick room where people would occasionally camp out in on a heavy night. I considered sleeping under my desk one night as I had been down the pub and needed to be in early the next day.
Lavish team building days.
Travelling first class, generally going to loads of conferences and training courses without anyone batting an eyelid.
Office parties in the office itself.
Dress down Friday.
Access to huge amounts of stationery that you could just help yourself to.
IT actually coming to your desk to help you sometimes.
Going to someone’s permanent desk to ask them a question (and have a chat).
All going to the canteen in big groups.
Your line manager would know about your personal home life, not for any particular reason. Having good friends at work, even people you weren’t “friends” with if that makes sense.
I do feel kind of sad that so much of the interaction and good sense of humour/separation between work and home is lost, it was going in that direction before the pandemic.

if we had a phone message to give to a colleague, we should e-mail it to them instead of writing it on a post-it like we normally did.

You didn't have a telephone message book? No carbon copy of the message?

Someone mentioned treasury tags - I just bought some off ebay to hold together a book copy that I've been proof-reading - so they do still exist!

I worked at a school that had the exercise books hole punched and the kids used treasury tags to put their handouts in - much better than the 15 prit sticks when only one has had the top put back on.

Writing tax returns & notice of codings by hand & packing them all in envelopes, using a slosher which was a big felt brust to wet them before sealing. Working on the switchboard, everyone had their own extension number. Packing the post in the post room & sending internal post by Data post. Clerical Assistants having to make tea & coffee for the whole floor including all the inspectors. Filing every afternoon at 3.00pm, more files went missing on a Friday after CA's had been in the pub for 2 hours thanany other day.

The book people - they used to come in every few months and leave a selection of discounted books in the canteen. Everyone filled in their order and left the cash for their purchase. I loved it!

Lunch time drinking

no questions asked expense accounts although I’m sure these still exist. They were so much fun - no limits on flights, hotel rates, dinners or drinks. Just pop it on the green amex and submit your receipt!

Huge wads of cash, which had to be stealthily extracted from the register without customers (or armed robbers) noticing and spirited away to the bank. In 1984 I was a teenage cashier in a department store. If banking were required I'd remove my name tag, stuff my large handbag full of cash and meander through the crowd to the in-house banking counter, trying all the while to look like an aimless, everyday shopper.
I recently had to be Tooth Fairy and could not rustle up enough cash for an under-pillow delivery. Had to go to the ATM!

The book people are still around.

@mackthepony saw your pigeon holes ref. I received an anonymous valentines card in mine, they had printed the message so no handwriting comparison. My then fiancée confessed it had been him after we had been dating months. Still married close to 25 years later.

First class train travel and endess free lunches and dinners. A clothing allowance to spend on suits.

microfoche, fax machines, dot matrix printers, long tea breaks.

Emails being a brand new thing, so printed out and sent via the internal mail to other offices that were not online.

Bottles of Lambrini in the staff room after work

I’m under 40 and at my first job we had a fax machine so that’s not true. Hated it though.

The tea trolley lady! She was most cherished in the bank I worked for. We also had a subsidised canteen.

My most recent job in London it was acceptable on Friday to crack open a bottle in the late afternoon. The office had its own dedicated drinks fridge.

Post boys. That's a thing of the past.
I actually liked wearing heels. I had my flats to change into but I enjoyed being taller than the men hehehe maybe that's just me though. I miss heels!

Suits. Suits and ties especially were everywhere. Nice cut suits make everyone look nicer but in the end I suppose none of it really matters. I wfh now anyway but would love to go back to the 'fun' days.I think some of it was that people stayed within a company longer too, that's not o common now. Myself included. Companies often don't give enough pay rises so you end up moving to get one.

I much preferred things when the tea trolley disappeared. Then you could get a cup of tea or coffee when you wanted one!