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?

Oh and a "medical room" used mostly for sleeping off hangovers

Being groped was seen as part of "client service".
Not being able to get a useful bit of work out of anyone on a Friday afternoon.
Faxing the same sheet of paper repeatedly.
Default work attire was a skirt suit and heels (and certainly not a cardigan under any circumstances - even though it was the draughtiest Georgian building).
No one batting an eye at having an elephant stool chucked at you by a highly strung director - as a PP said, HR was basically a hiring function and once you were in, it was "sink or swim".
The after hours drink trolley... the after hours drug trolley (number one: yes please as I sit here until midnight; number two: thank god not for me or goodness knows where that would have ended...).
My MD's penchant for Madam JoJos was a standard Thursday night - so actually, getting work out of ANYONE on Friday was impossible.
Company cars in London.

I was the only female on an all male team when I started work in 1997. One guy would openly watch porn in the office on his computer. He was actually disciplined and eventually dismissed but it shows what the culture was like up to that point and when the internet was new and they hadn’t put restrictions in place yet.

When I was pregnant in 95/96 I spent long periods in hospital. Before I was 24 weeks I was put on a gynecological ward. I was 22 weeks. There were women on the ward who had miscarriages, terminations and hysterectomies. I wasn't even put in a private room (there were several), more for the other's benefit than mine. Not only that but the ward had a balcony where patients could openly smoke.
Later on (after 24 weeks) I spent weeks at a time on the anti-natal ward. It was on a corridor, but shared visitor rooms with a Cancer ward off the same corridor. I had a family member on there who I'd visit in the day room so she could smoke. She was terminally ill and said there was no point stopping. My point is this would be 95/96 and smoking was definitely still allowed in the dayroom then.
DC2 wasn't born until ten years later and things had changed so much. It's hard to believe parents were smoking in Macdonalds by the ball pool in the late 90s too.

Everyone had a company branded ashtray on their desk.

Friday pub lunches we rarely returned from.

I worked in a sports club. When I started, new member cards had to be sent off for. We then got a laminator. Oh, the excitement. And it only did credit card sized lamination!

Reading all these comments made me realise what absolute FUN most of it was! Yes, you worked hard, but I actually looked forward to going to work. The only thing I hated was the smoking - in my office, people could smoke before 10 and after 4!! I would hate to be an office worker now - no fun, no banter, no flirty comments - how boring.

The last minute rosters are still a thing sadly.

Getting a temp in to cover holidays/absences. Was great signing up to temp agencies to get some money between jobs on during uni holidays. I don’t know of work places that use temps now. The work just stacks up waiting for you to come back.

Asked to leave a temping job because they thought I was a lesbian and it would be a bad influence on the typing pool.

Smoking at my desk in a temping job.

As a teacher smoking in the 'smoking staff room' with 6 other teachers.

Being told by my supervisor that I should sleep with him to get a good reference. I reported him and he wasn't disciplined. I did however get a fair reference.

I was sexually harassed by an elderly man who occasionally visted the office. When I told him to piss off the whole office was in uproar because I hurt his feelings. He was such a sleaze.

Publishing in the 80s-90s. So ...much...drinking. I don't know how any of us are still alive. Crates of booze delivered on a Friday afternoon.

Fax machines. Red and blue pens taped together to mark up typescripts. Checking bromides and proofs.

Soft porn on the walls of all the printers & typesetters (that were all about to lose their jobs to the new computer/printers).

Getting smashed at lunchtime.

Early 00s.Friends BF was a police " special" a volunteer basically.He had access to the bar upstairs in the police station.We used to go and get pissed in a room full of police.Very surreal!

1994, first job. Music industry. Open plan office. We all smoked at our desks. Ludicrous. I don’t think there were actually any non-smokers at all, at least I don’t remember anyone complaining. We moved into a new office in 97 and it stopped then as we had a dedicated smoking room.

We had a stock cupboard full of surplus new release singles and albums and were allowed to help ourselves. I didn’t buy any music for a decade.

Record company parties. We would book actual limousines to take us to the venue. No one batted an eyelid.

Sometimes a big artist would have some limited edition promo items made to go with their latest release. Anything from t shirts, coats, sunglasses to dolls, handbags or custom bottles of spirits. You’d grab what you could, hoard it for a few years then sell it on eBay for hundreds.

Drug taking. Lots of it. Sometimes supplied by your bosses. Occasionally snorted off your desk.

When you could sack someone in the first 2 years /later changed to a year of employment and they’d moan about it and be pissed off but basically just fuck off never to be heard from again. Not now, often misplaced sense of entitlement and fabrication of “discrimination” and looking for money to fuck off

Yes my work reviews as a journalist were done down the pub with my (female) manager accompanied by lots of wine and cigarettes.

Yes, me too. Surprised she thinks that’s odd.

Announcing on tannoy leaflets for destruction numbers 24, 36, 11.

it was staff bingo….. claimants in waiting area.

A couple of things spring to mind from my first office job in late 1999:

1. a smoking room with actual computers in it that people could log in to so that they could work in there while they smoked.
2. a typing pool of older ladies who typed letters from dictaphones all day
3. a boss who made offensive comments to be about blow jobs every time I ate a banana

As a non smoking nurse, being forced to escort the smoking mental health patients to the smoking room and having to sit in there with them constantly.

The microwriter: one-handed typing device, with only six buttons, and you got each letter by pressing different combinations of them. My dad used one; he said that with practice, you could type really quickly.

I worked in London in the 90s. You'd buy a newspaper and read a column called Secs in the City written by secretaries who worked in the City, usually in banking. At the same time we all watched Sex & The City, as well as Friends (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you were like me). You had to choose between Oasis and Blur. Ladettes were everywhere and I enjoyed the subsequent hit show Ladette to Lady. Women suddenly loved football and pints. No-one took a photo of themselves.

I am ethnically Indian. In the 1990s my boss got quite drunk at a work do and asked me in front of other staff if my vagina went from side to side rather than straight down as he had heard it did for Indian girls...

Also men openly at the Christmas party agreeing their scores for women in the office. Only a bit of a laugh apparently.

Work codes which insisted women wore skirts in the office. No trousers allowed. Heals were also mandated.

A smoking ban being introduced and then rescinded as the Partners did not wish to comply.

@MotherofPufflings ooh did you work at that big building in Liverpool? (Now derelict for years. I live not far from it) 🙂

Fellow asthmatic here too so I would have hated it!