What was normal in your workplace in the noughties that would be outrageous now

[Shhhhivegotasecret]

My example - all the men going off to continue business meeting at a Stringfellows leaving all the women behind…. Would be the stuff of tribunals nowadays, back then it was 🤷‍♀️

In 2005 I worked at a major M&S that still had a smoking room

😂 this still happens too

Yep! Great!

I never worked in offices for any length of time as the majority of my jobs have been in the NHS/ charities working directly with service users. I have to say I’m fortunate as I think there wasn’t the same amount of sexism & harassment (except maybe from the service users but that was nipped in the bud). In health/ education it’s the smoking that seems to get people through & I do remember staff having cigarettes with service users which was pretty inappropriate.

Circa 2002/3 as it was my first job after ds was born in 2002. (Apologies if the reply wasn’t to me!)

Still the expectation in the workplace I just left, including a clock on and off machine that will dock your pay if you are more than 5 mins late…

Smoking constantly at my desk, like everyone else in my office.

Only having one PC (mine, for accounts) and all the quoted being typed up on a typewriter 😁

Being asked if I was available to do short notice over time in an interview and me innocently aged 17, stating I could be very flexible for overtime requests.

Met by audible sniggers from the two male interviewers - one almost choked and turned bright red 😤

Why I subjected my self to that job I don’t fucking know.

The only saving grace is that I am much higher up than the pair of them in my career these days.

Utter cuntish wankers

Anyone remember these? A stack would arrive every day.




Picture won't post! It's the old bug multi use envelopes

No partners at the christmas doo

No partners at the Christmas doo

The fun stuff would include pub lunches, people not acting like work was EVERYTHING, informal Xmas parties where everyone bought a plate of party food from home etc.

And a few less fun highlights from 2000s.

• having to line up with the other younger female members of staff to give the MD a lap dance at the Christmas party. I found it so embarrassing but was young and didn’t know how to get out of the situation.
• my manager holding a male colleague down and ordering me to measure his penis
• my bonus being threatened because I wouldn’t go to a strip club after work with boss and other superiors.

The list goes on. I really hope young women entering the work place now don’t have to put up with this sort of sh1t. I didn’t find it character building at all and actually found it all quite traumatic.

I worked in administration for a all male organisation at 21-23 years old and it was just constant pervy comments ALL the time. Couldn't even bend over to get something off a bottom shelf without whistles. They had nude calendars on the walls everywhere and a "pull a pig" league on one wall where they would go out and take photos of the "pig". I didn't think it was great at the time obviously, but I sadly just thought that was the norm.

I agree. It was. Work is now just a serious, dull chore where no-one really makes friends and everyone is overworked and stressed. Work used to have fun elements and stuff like lunchtime drinking really bonded people. I still have very close friends from my work in the noughties. If I left my current workplace tomorrow I'd never see any of them again and wouldn't care! I'm much less loyal to my workplace as a result as there's no personal connection at all.

Not the norm in an office this century tho. We used floppies in 1992 and a colleague from another division was astonished we had no network. So 10 years before the noughties.

I also highly doubt there were many offices in 2001 with one computer and everyone else using typewriters!

Started first proper job in mid noughties, as did DH, he was paid by cheque which didn’t seem that unusual. At Christmas we’d have a table full of whisky from suppliers etc but that stopped in 2008 recession, that seemed like the big turning point, work has never felt that ‘fun’ since then.

If any of these happened today it would most definitely be a dispatches documentary. That's crazy.

I worked in a bank in my teens and we all smoked at our desks with piles of cheques & cash coming through to be put in the safe.
Another job I had years ago, they would hire out a boat to entertain clients, thought it was all very posh until one propositioned me. Turned out they also hired ladies to entertain the clients a bit too well and he thought I was one of them. Seemed the norm in the industry at that time sadly.

Being slapped on the arse by older colleagues (teachers!)
Going to the pub on a Friday lunch time.
Head teacher serving us wine when it was Xmas dinner day.
Drinking alcohol on school trips
Sadly, there’s still a lot of sexist attitudes where I work and sexual harassment. How some men have got away with it over the years I’ll never know.

We still do this or at least did until recently, we aren’t opposite a pub anymore.

It would probably make for a good episode as I was working for a well known brand at the time. This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg tbh. I ended up leaving as I had no idea, in my early 20s, as to how to deal with such institutional sexist behaviour.

This!
Except we never left the pub, just carried on into the evening and then went to a local restaurant.
Pretty much every Friday and always the last day of the month (pay day).
Fun times!

This is brilliant! Needs to go to classics.