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Original poster

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

658 replies

Shhhhivegotasecret · 02/12/2023 19:32

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 🤷‍♀️

OP posts:
GellerYeller · 02/12/2023 20:47

Oh I forgot - the unions! Typists’ jobs being protected by forbidding anyone except them to produce reports,documents, memos… which were then duplicated, triplicated, circulated… physically.

Delatron · 02/12/2023 20:48

GellerYeller · 02/12/2023 20:40

Women being treated less favourably than men, even if the men were in less senior roles.
A Smash Hits style poll of most fanciable female employees being voted on, and posted on a memo board as part of end of year ‘japes’.

Yeah in my media company there would be a weekly ‘top 3’ women of the week. This was sent around by email.

PeskyPotato · 02/12/2023 20:48

Late 90's, first job, complained to manager about a man kept smacking my bum and and making snide and sexist comments to me and was told "that's just the way he is".

LaughingCat · 02/12/2023 20:50

Pub lunches and, while smoking in the offices I worked in, in the Noughties, had definitely disappeared by the time I got there, it was still alive and well after hours in the pubs I did shifts. As was drinking on shift (remember when ‘take one for yourself’ meant pour yourself an actual drink, not take 20p on top of the total for the round?).

Oooohhhh…I definitely wouldn’t get away with blatantly ogling the window washers swinging in their harnesses any more either 🫣

GellerYeller · 02/12/2023 20:50

@Delatron we had a coterie of women who saw it as a badge of honour to be featured. Versus the rest who objected and were told to lighten up.

clary · 02/12/2023 20:50

A Smash Hits style poll of most fanciable female employees

@GellerYeller harsh! When I worked at SH we never did anything like that Grin

AInightingale · 02/12/2023 20:51

A woman getting a tub of vaseline and a giant cucumber wrapped up for a Secret Santa gift. Yes, really.

Someone running an informal bookies from their desk and spending all day placing bets.

Saturday and Sunday 'overtime' in which everyone drank tea until ten thirty, took a two hour lunch, watched football matches on the office TV in the afternoon, and went home at three, having been paid double for eight hours' 'work'.

Civil service, can't you tell?

GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut · 02/12/2023 20:52

I definitely worked somewhere where people smoked in the office in the 00s. I started at that job in 2004.

We also used to send rude faxes to the business the other side of the street and watch through the plate glass windows for someone to pick it up!

TheSilentSister · 02/12/2023 20:52

I was 'bottom' office junior and my mate was 'top' office junior. Every Friday we went to the pub at lunch time and kid you not, we had 4 shorts in an hour. The bar man had the first one ready. Not much got done after that. Then we'd hit the local pizza place after work - that had 'happy hour' on cocktails. I don't know how I survived!
We smoked in the staff kitchen (grim) and we were allowed to smoke at our desk upto 10 and after 4. Sounds bizarre rules now.
Office parties, bosses hitting on the younger females, totally normal.

Whilst some of the above is clearly outrageous, I don't like how sterile the working world has gone.

GellerYeller · 02/12/2023 20:53

@clary I LOVED Smash Hits! I’m in awe of you ❤️

LaughingCat · 02/12/2023 20:53

AInightingale · 02/12/2023 20:51

A woman getting a tub of vaseline and a giant cucumber wrapped up for a Secret Santa gift. Yes, really.

Someone running an informal bookies from their desk and spending all day placing bets.

Saturday and Sunday 'overtime' in which everyone drank tea until ten thirty, took a two hour lunch, watched football matches on the office TV in the afternoon, and went home at three, having been paid double for eight hours' 'work'.

Civil service, can't you tell?

God - I hit the CS two decades too late - I’d kill for some easy overtime instead of working 50 hours+ every week but only getting paid for 37.5 of them!

Nofilteritwonthelp · 02/12/2023 20:53

Extreme sexyal harassment, seen as flattering and funny by all

bookwormcrazy · 02/12/2023 20:53

Smoking rooms, and weekly incestuous work night outs where everyone seemed to be sleeping with everyone!

Historybooks · 02/12/2023 20:53

Chocolate boobs in the secret santa. Training for retail where the guy said research shows women in make up sell more products - I advise you all consider it. Boss saying your hair looks a mess, it's not good for customers to see that, tie it up. Note I wasn't working in a kitchen.

Cheeseplantalltheway · 02/12/2023 20:54

Smoking in hospitals

56 hour shifts

ZoeyBartlett · 02/12/2023 20:55

PuttingDownRoots · 02/12/2023 19:42

Opening bottles of champagne with swords

One of my colleagues is in the Sabrage Society and regularly takes colleagues to do this!

Teenagehorrorbag · 02/12/2023 20:55

I worked in a bank in the 80s. Our customer records were A5 pieces of cardboard pinned together, and if a customer had a meeting with a manager or an interaction with a staff member that needed recording, it could be typed or handwritten onto these.

They regularly said 'this attractive young lady called to discuss mortgages' or similar.....🙄!

We had appraisals which included similar comments - such as that I was well turned out etc.

And you could get a really good rate on a staff mortgage! You had to be 21 if you were a man, and 25 if a single woman, 23 if married........Grin. I bought my first house at 21 and had to use a Building Society. I think the rules changed shortly afterwards and at 23 I was allowed to get a staff mortgage despite being single (shock)!! That would have been 1987 so over a decade after the sex discrimination act.........

Alighttouchonthetiller · 02/12/2023 20:56

I was teaching in the 90s. Smoking rooms, alcohol (although only one of those tiny beers or a dribble of wine) in the staffroom during Friday lunchtimes, smoking in classrooms before/after the school day. We had long enough lunch breaks to go to the pub for lunch (these days I don't have enough time to blow my nose or eat a sandwich, never mind having time to eat a proper meal in the pub). We would all pile into the pub after work nearly every day of the week. We were a young staff, so there was lots of intrigue and gossip and furtive snogging. It was great fun. Occasionally we would remember to teach a lesson.

GellerYeller · 02/12/2023 20:58

People going on secondment or training in other areas of the country and being advised to stay with a mate and get them to write an invoice so you could claim a daily expense allowance equivalent to a hotel room with meals.

jolies1 · 02/12/2023 20:59

clary · 02/12/2023 20:01

Did people really have offices where colleagues smoked at their desks less than 20 years ago?

We banned smoking in the office where I worked as a decision by the newsroom - in 1987.

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.

Certainly not in this century. It was banned in workplaces in 2007 but surely most offices had outlawed it way before then. Or was I just lucky?

It wasn’t allowed in the office but we definitely had a smokers staff room in around 2003

user6776 · 02/12/2023 21:02

Those saying pub at lunch time, that still happens at my work? 😂

user6776 · 02/12/2023 21:03

We still send and receive faxes also!

casuarinatree · 02/12/2023 21:04

I worked in a small office in the early noughties and the owners smoked at their desks. It worked out well for me as well as they always had cartons and cartons of duty free Marlboro lights as they commuted internationally each week, so I'd help myself to a pack on a Friday afternoon when I was the only person in the office.

In my next job after that (late-00s) the married IT director was having an affair with the MD's secretary (also married) and they got caught having sex in the disabled loo once during office hours.

BiscuitsandPuffin · 02/12/2023 21:05

Oh yes in retail being told to smile more and the store manager always put the "pretty" girls on the tills when the area manager visited as it was the only way to get top marks on the inspection. Used to roll my eyes at that one.

I've been pondering lately about the whole "enjoy being young free and single and not tied down to a baby" and why life doesn't really seem to have changed since we had kids. I think it's because the world isn't like this anymore. There is no drinking and smoking at work. No sending naughty faxes/emails to people. No "overtime" that's really a complete doss. There isn't the same fun in the world. You don't even have time at lunch to cook and eat food anymore, let alone go out for food somewhere.

GardensandGrandDesigns · 02/12/2023 21:08

Am I the only one that feels like sexism in the work place is still the same but just hidden better? The naked calendars might be gone but women are still seen as the secretaries and objectified. It's still boys club out there, no matter your job title! It's depressing.