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 the 90s?

Oh I miss Friday pub lunches, although the Creatives still did that pre Covid. Probably not now as no-one is in the office!

Definitely smoking at desks in local council offices in the 90's

Men giving the women shoulder massages while they were sat at their desks

Coming back to work pissed after liquid lunches and just cracking on with our work. Booze trolley coming round at 5pm every Friday, then turning off the sprinklers so we could smoke at the same time.

Being expected to work from the office 5 days a week. And to pick up the phone and - shock horror - actually speak to people.

Absolutely. My colleague smoked like a trooper until I left the job in 2004 (the leaving and the smoking were not related)

People were smoking at desks until 2007!

I started teaching in 1999 and our smoking room was rammed every break and lunch. Lunchtime boozing was unusual but it happened.

Using a guillotine to cut share certificates. Dangerous as F.
Using typex.
Luncheon vouchers.
Drinking Friday lunchtime.
Sleeping at the office.
Sexy screen savers.
If someone kept their computer open then a colleague would send a funny email from their account.

Ooh loads. I was 18 in 2000 and has just entered the workforce!

Indoor smoking rooms. Offices and everywhere else in the buildings were non- smoking, but there were dedicated rooms, and smokers could go pretty much whenever they fancied, as late as 2005.

It being perfectly acceptable in an open plan office for the 'lads' to have copies of Zoo, Nuts, page 3, rudey calendars etc etc open and being read on desks/lying around everywhere - this was as late as the early 2010s!

Pubs visits at lunchtime where people routinely drank alcohol, and not just the one. Again, early 2010s.

General sexist culture - women being expected to wear skirts and heels, lap-dancing and golf trips for the male execs, office relationships that were totally inappropriate due to conflict of interests and power imbalances. Early 2010s.

I'm sure there's more! Maybe I just worked at some dodgy old places, but one was civil service!

I worked for a council at the beginning of the 90s and smoking was banned, but two men just carried on doing it anyway and nobody appeared to say anything.

Oh - being asked about if you wanted to have children and when in interviews, and also being asked if you were married. That sort of thing.

I worked in a hospital. The pilfering that went on, unbelievable. Everyone was on the take.

Lifting heavy boxes/pushing heavy machinery.

1998 was a trainee solicitor in a city firm and there was a smoking room. Lawyers used to go to the pub at lunchtime and drink alcohol. Some of the partners used to drink whisky openly in their offices from about 4.30/5pm. Sexism and racism too from lawyers including the head of the employment department ironically. Some of the partners spoke openly disparagingly about the secretaries and called them "Dorises" eg "give my typing to one of the Dorises".

We used to have boozy lunches almost daily, and Thursdays and Fridays the floodgates opened and we would ditch work early and get really pissed.

Working your way up without qualifications was definitely much more of a thing IME, I had no self-consciousness or anxiety at all when I was young, so I would just get right involved if I was asked to help with anything or someone was off sick. I’ve worked my way up, climbing through anywhere I’ve ever worked, off the back of starting as a “filing girl” with about 2 GCSEs at 16.

Smoking breaks were seen as perfectly fair and normal. You’d never be pissed off with someone constantly going out for a fag!

I remember one office I worked at, it was very much expected to buy the boss a gift when you went on holiday, and a gift for the office. I was so stressed out as I had a holiday only a couple of months after starting - I had no idea what to buy but ended up buying the office a load of local booze which the whole office partied on over like a random late afternoon sesh. I bought the boss silver cufflinks 🤦‍♀️ Absolute madness. We’d still be answering the phones and writing stuff down between knocking back shots of ouzo or something 😅 the boss totally encouraged us all being wild drunken pals, anyone who didn’t join in was treated like Victor Meldrew.

I worked in a big law firm in London and one of the partners smoked in his office (which he shared with an unfortunate trainee) until it was illegal. It's really quite amazing when you look back.

3.30pm on Friday.... someone would head to the supermarket and bring back loads of booze and we'd all start drinking.

Loads of casual racist/sexist banter

The shoulder massages may not be acceptable any more but God, my boss gave good massages and I do miss them!

And i got asked out a few times over the office email by guys I wasn't interested in.

That's such a bizarre concept. I started work in 2001. Smoking inside was banned already across the whole organisation and had been for years. I didn't realise we were particularly forward thinking.

OMG where did you work?

I worked in the Houses of Parliament for 16 years - 95-2011.
smoking everywhere, even after the ban. My boss and I continued to smoke in his office and no one said a thing.
On site bars and a pub where day long drinking went on.
Some male MPs and parliamentary staff were complete dicks, as expected.
However, it was fun!

Lunch break being an hour. And being encouraged to come back on time and not before.
Freebies - gifts from suppliers and later in a different companies, drug reps from major pharmaceutical companies.
Being able to support yourself in London by temping.

I worked there until 1992, and I worked in numerous newspapers and magazines after that; while some colleagues smoked and there was a smoking room in some of them, I genuinely don't recall anyone smoking at their desk in the years since.

I worked in media companies in the 90s (magazines). There was one trade magazine (only six of us in the office) where the editor smoked at his desk until one day he managed to set a pile of paperwork alight at which point he was required by the property manager to smoke on the fire escape. At a large international media company in Camden you were allowed to smoke in the kitchen (which didn't have a door) so smoke drifted out and over the floor where 100+ people were working. At the end of the day when most people had gone any smokers who were finishing stuff off or hanging about before going out for the evening would light up at their desks and then throw their dog-ends out of the window, onto the heads of passing pedestrians below.

The office where I did my work experience in 1999 had smokers and ashtrays. I remember it well because I had to empty them. 🤢