Things that happened in the 90s work place that wouldn't happen now

[PrincessHoneysuckle]

Well it might have been just my very unprofessional one but anyway.
1.Smoking in the break room.No windows that opened and around and 6-8 people at a time smoking in a small room
2.Stripper.
Male stripper turned up to the office for a woman's birthday surprise.No music just him gyrating on her,there might have been a can of whipped cream involved.
3.No HR no nothing.Just a sadistic manager.

Anyone else have memories?

something else ive just remembered (though poss late 80s) people bringing their poorly kids into work- i used to go to my mums office if she couldn’t find anyone to look after me, my teacher brought her poorly son in to join our class !

I started my first job in 1985 and people smoked at their desks. My office (4 or 5 of us) were all anti smoking so put up no smoking signs before I arrived to stop me from smoking. Not that I wanted to!

Yep remember this. When I first started work dad would ring and once talked to my boss for a bit.

We'd also have to act as secretaries and take messages for others.

One chap had a neurotic wife who would call wanting to know where something was in the house, eg the parcel tape, the string.

Another woman had a bloke calling to try to get her to commit to seeing him again. She wasn't interested but we still had to take the message/s.

I was at primary school in the 90s and trousers weren’t part of the girls’ uniform. A friend and I took issue with that and just started wearing them. To be fair to the school, after a few weeks of trying to get us to stop, with more and more girls turning up in trousers, the headmaster (it was headmasters and headmistresses then) has a conversation with us in his office and changed the policy.

When I started work in the mid-2000s (lots of pub and restaurant jobs), groping was par for the course. I reckon I was sexually assaulted at least weekly at work. It was a bit more frowned upon by that point and no managers did it to me but it was still widespread among peers. Being sexually harassed by customers was the norm and you were expected to tolerate it - ordering a drink from the bottom shelf to watch you bend over was a common one.

I was let go from a temp office job as a teenager after a few days for ‘getting above’ myself by correctly alphabetising files, rather than just filing them in any order as long as the first letter was right. 🤣🤣🤣

I went to my mum’s school once when there was an INSET day (or teacher training day, as was) at my school. I joined in all the PE lessons and had a great time!

My first office job interview as a young lass was mainly based on whether I made a decent cup of tea. I was utterly useless at admin but somehow go the job.

my boss a much older male would do lines of cocaine and count his gambling winnings at lunchtimes while drinking a whiskey. He died in his late 40’s apparently.
Mad times

We still get faxes 😂

The good old days.

X

I did clerical work at a police station and one of the coppers used to grab me every morning, throw me over the desk and dry-hump me. Not sure if that would still happen!

Maureen was a large lady where I worked and she was known universally as Big Mo

Early 2000s French study trips the teachers had bottles of wine with their picnic lunch & more wine at dinner time. We’re not allowed to drink at all now.

Paper registers in school & kids could bunk off easily if they wanted to.

Hand written school reports.

Hour long lunch breaks in school & either going for a swim or having a pub lunch on a Friday. By the 2010s this had turned into teachers being expected to do interventions over lunch breaks & some poor kids would barely get a break.

When I worked in an office mid 1990s we had a post girl who had a trolley & used to spend the day delivering messages.

We used to have smoking rooms in engineering companies but I’m pretty sure people used to smoke at their desks.

Fax machines.

I don’t think the whole wfh culture is necessarily a good thing. Although I suppose it does mean young girls don’t get groped by middle age men and they don’t have to put up with sexist banter.

What a great thread! Agree with most of these, I started work in the late 70s and still working now and the change is astonishing and not always in a good way! Work used to be fun and relaxed. We'd get the post every morning and it would be filed or put in in-trays, now we get a constant stream of emails wanting urgent action. I also smoked at my desk and remember sitting at my old typewriter with a lit fag resting in the ashtray next to me, same as the secretary next to me. The office had smoke doors too so you can imagine! TIPPEX! In those days trying to correct a mistake when typing with carbon copied was a nightmare! Or even worse, an eraser which used to rip the paper if you were too gung ho. It was great though, we had proper lunch hours and either went to the pub or someone did a chippy run. During the 90s the sexual innuendo was outrageous, I worked with mostly men for about 10 years and my colleague next to me would sit and watch porn on his PC, can you imagine doing that today. The directors had a shagging list of women they fancied in the company and there was a lot of inappropriate touching, boob grabbing etc. Friday morning breakfast sarnies. Always straight to the pub on a Friday after work. Sadly these were the happiest 10 years of my working life and Im still in touch with a lot of them today.

It was so much fun in my early 00s job though! Yes a lot of innuendo and boob talk but a great team and lots of laughter. Tea breaks all together and lunchtime we used to do the crossword in the newspaper together. Fridays was often a pub lunch then pub after work.

Peripheral adherence to H&S.
In my first construction related job there was a pool of hard hats, safety boots and hi vis jackets to share. Not Personal Protective Equipment, just… Protective Equipment. It’s the only time I’ve ever been pleased to have size 9 feet. One gel was a size 4 and had to stuff newspaper into the toes of the smallest wellies - size 6.

Flexi time getting absolutely hammered. Working core time after a night out, in for ten absolutely hammered, someone popping out for bacon butties, long lunch then off at 4. Smoking at the desk. I rocked up to my new team after Christmas break, heating off, so team leader broke out a bottle of whiskey for our morning coffee.

I loved the 90s. I started work in the late 70s but the people at the company I worked for were quite serious and I was a junior.

By the 90s I had moved jobs and was more senior and we just had fun. We smoked at our desks, went out for long lunches (often with clients) with lots of wine, pub after work, excellent social life, charity galas and black tie events, conferences, lots of business travel. We did work hard when needed, but they were the best years of my life.

We women all wore high heels and skirt suits, no trousers allowed. The only time we were allowed to wear trousers was when the company moved to temporary offices with limited heating whilst ours were being redecorated.

There were issues with creepy men who couldn't keep their hands to themselves, plenty of sexual innuendos and many affairs going on between various members of staff, lots of inappropriate behaviour but it was generally treated as a bit of a joke. As women we were completely outnumbered by men in my line of work, so only those willing to fight the misogyny would be working at a senior level anyway. There was no HR department to turn to so anyone who didn't like it would have no choice but to leave as the bosses were often worse than the staff.

I'm retired now, but I think I would hate working from home. My social life revolved around friends made through work and I married a colleague. Without all that, work would have been very dull.