It was acceptable in the '80s... Come and reminisce about your first job.

[AgentProvocateur]

I left uni in 1987, and worked in an office. We had a telex machine which was a complete bastard to operate, and although we had computers, most correspondence was done on electric typewriters. In about 1988 or 1989, we got our first fax machine (with a roll of thermal paper) and then in the early '90s we got an internal email system which we all thought was amazing.

My manager was the first person I knew to get a mobile - a huge brick that plugged into the cigarette lighter in the car, and could, I think, only be used in the car.

But what seems most amazing now was the fact that we all smoked at our desks, and we had company ashtrays. Our MD had a box of cigarettes on his desk that he'd hand round at meetings. It seems unbelievable that this was the 1980s and not the 1940s.

We also used to do a lot of business lunches, and we'd often stay in the pub for the rest of the afternoon.

Changed days.

My first job when I left uni in 1999 was in an antiquated leather factory as a temporary secretary. The owners were three ancient men who referred to me as Miss X and expected me to call them Sir or Mr X. I was told to wear skirts and there was no cOmputers just an electric typewriter!

I went to work for a large/medium-sized national bank in 1999. The system for managing credit based products ran off DOS. They got an "intranet" and we were all taken in small groups to look at it. Or rather 5 of us stood round a PC and looked at the static homepage and made "ahhhh" noises.

I went to work for a bigger bank in 2001. All branch account systems ran off DOS. We used to write letters to customers using Olitext. I used to have to balance the ledgers monthly and investigate discrepancies. My tools were a pencil, ruler and an adding machine with a thermal paper roll.

In 2006 I went to work for another bank. Most major system updates were done on a DOS system.

By 2009 they were all owned by the same multi-national and had one of the most sophisticated computer systems in the world. Unfortunately the staff still leave something to desire...

I remember my dad had one of those massive car phones - I seem to remember he had to drive around for ages before he found a signal too.

I remember my part time waitressing job, where one night it was dead so the boss sent me upstairs to his flat to do his ironing! I was well chuffed as I just stuck the tv on. I ironed a mountain of shirts....Ironing has never been my thing though so boss moaned for weeks about the odd creases....He never got me to do it again.

I remember being bloody AMAZED when I did my first Excel training....that computers could do such stuff.

My student job in 1988 was at a contract packing company, we used to pack evreything from toys to car parts.

I remember packing Janet Regers (£37 a pair back then!), no heating or hot water in building and only one set of loos flushed. One tea machine that never worked, strictly observed breaks (10 mins morning & afternoon, 30 mins lunch, spent sitting round table where everyone smoked but me). Clocking in & out, collecting £50 in an envelope for a 40 hour week, most of it spent on our feet. And the "Viv's getting married" vultures descending shortly after the pay packets went round.
One supervisor hated me and made that very clear, other one offered to keep me on.

First permanent job the same year:- smoking in tea room, one mainframe PC for printing labels and e-mail only between eight of us, one phone for whole office. And the typists in the office would lynch you if you did your own typing. Then Lotus 123 and Mass11 arrived and it all changed.

Started work in 1983 somewhere at the forefront of modern technology. We had computers even back then, but had to go to a special room to use them. Took a few more years to get them on everyone's desks, but I remember using a mouse and Windows before almost anyone else had heard of them.

We could communicate by primitive internal email even back in the mid 80s which we all abused and mainly used to chat to mates.

my 1st job was in a well-known unHigh End cosmetics distribution warehouse - breaking boxes and because i was under age and not covered by industrial insurance had to collect my pay every day in case someone spotted me and i then wouldn't be allowed back on the premises!

I had a Saturday job in Woolworths - the smokers all smoked like chimneys in the dining room - we didn't even think that it might not be nice for the non-smokers.
I can remember the excitement when we got a new stereo system for behind the record bar - as well as a turntable and cassette player it had a CD player - everyone came to look and marvel at it.

I also worked in a restaurant and again, we all smoked in the grotty tiny portacabin where we had breaks.
Pay packets were collected weekly - on payday the restaurant owners used to invite everyone to the pub they owned for one half price drink after work - of course, loads of people ended up spending lots of their hard earned cash at the bar

When I was in university in the 80's we used to smoke through tutorials

Not long ago I stuck my Boots Advantage cards in one of the machines instore where you can get extra vouchers. It crashed, so I got the assistant over, he unlocked it and put it into computer mode, looked as though it was running on Windows 3.1 from where I was standing, no wonder you can't use your advantage points for online orders.

mrsericbana that has just reminded me, my school had a smoking room for 6th formers as well - and i did my a levels in 1998

I worked for a drinks company and we could help ourselves to unlimited wine to accompany our lunch. A lot of people must have been over the limit at the end of the day when they drove home.

We had a total alcohol ban at my company - you weren't even allowed to bring in your lunchtime shopping with a bottle of wine in your carrier bag. Even if you had an evening function in the restaurant (they had a very active social club set up) it had to be dry. Could go to the pub at lunchtime and drink as much as you liked without anyone batting an eyelid though.

later on working as a police officer in early 90's..... A line skirt ( trousers only just becoming an option, but not then I joined. It had a long pocket concealed inside for our issued WOODEN truncheon!! We were also issued a HANDBAG.

And we wore the little black an White checked tie!

1992, started gap year job with large computer firm, programming mainframes etc. Manager would come over and use his BO as a weapon, lifting his arm onto your cubicle wall and you would go 'yes Ian, no Ian, three bags full Ian', just to get him to go away as fast as possible! He wore one shirt all week as his hacked-off wife had gone on strike some years earlier and refused to wash and iron any more shirts.

Same chap would also scream abuse at anyone when in a bad mood, blokes routinely being a fing c and women a silly bitch... while in between saying regularly 'I don't understand sexual discrimination against women - they look so pretty around the workplace!' The other chaps were fine, pure old-fashioned geeks. I'm sure I could have come to work naked and half of them wouldn't have noticed!

Started as a teenage secretary for Midland Bank (Wills and Probate) in 1985, I didn't have to do a typing test, but I had to do a geography test of places in the UK ("can you locate The Wash on the map?") - passed with flying colours! Very relevant, living in Croydon.

Lots of smoking in the office of course.

Six secretaries in one room, the deafening sound of manual typewriters, some of which are older than us, five of us are smokers, but we kindly let the non-smoker sit next to the window.

An hour and a half for lunch - time to go home and come back. I used to go home and walk the dog, and then eat my lunch at my desk when I came back.

One of my colleagues gets hauled in by the senior partner for 'behaving like a shop girl'. She had walked out of the office and lit a cigarette. Smoking in the street was not acceptable - now you can't smoke anywhere else!

My boss, who I loved dearly, told me that his main recruitment tool was the Elbow Test. I asked him to explain. His response was something like this 'Stand there (facing the wall) and put your elbows on the wall. If your tits touch the wall as well - you're in!'

The senior partner's secretary reminiscing about when he had come back to the office after his war service...and the huge pile of Health and Efficiency magazines we found in her desk when she retired.

A nice man from the bank coming to talk to all the lady employees about having a bank account, and some of them saying that they would like to, but their husbands wouldn't like it. They carried on cashing their cheques.

Happy memories...of the 1980s

D

In our offices (early 80's) the computer was so big it lived in a special dust free room of it's own. It was about the size of a garden shed and only a few people were allowed in there to change the massive tapes on it. You had to be very high up the pecking order to be allowed in 'The Computer Room'

There were about 50 key terminals for inputting data - this was a specialised job that required 6 weeks training - I never made the dizzy heights of Data Processor.

Everyone smoked - at their desk, in the corridors, in the loos. We used to go to the pub on a Friday lunchtime and get quite drunk. On my 21st I was so drunk in the office I kept sliding off my chair. My boss sent me to sit in the toilets until hometime with a cup of coffee

i started working in 1989 for a company that shipped fine art and antiques for companies such as bonhams and christies

we would have fine works of art in by picasso, dali amoung many others (often seen on antiques road show that week) and very expensive antiques. it was set up a little like a shop (no security) and smoking was allowed in teh office even with lots of packing materials around

though when we had a monet painting in we did lock the front and back doors and no smoking was allowed :)

I still remember having a fag on the tube on the way home from work...

I remember going to work with my dad for 6 weeks over the summer holiday

He said they needed some help in the stores which i was happy to do

I was there for a while when a fairly senior man arrived, he took one look at me and said

"oh, you can't possibly work in here, you are female go and get something to do in the kitchen. Washing up or something"!

He was well known for being a HUGE chauvinist and very unfaithful to his wife, but still

I remember a colleague having a long lunch every Friday because she would get her hair done then. Every week.