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.

One colleague used to think it was OK to grab and try and hug me all the time (He was a twat) When I tried to complain I was told "He's only having a bit of fun"

Filofax.

Being sent abroad with work. I was told you are the first "girl" to go abroad. I hope we haven't made a mistake and won't do something stupid like crying.

My gay colleague being told that he had finally been accepted by the salesman. His retort was "that's good of them, I haven't accepted them yet" . Other office staff talking about bumchums, and turdhunters in front of him

One memeber of staff asking an African girl who worked there if it was true that all darkies had big knobs

No one realised what they were saying

I think they knew what they were saying, they just didn't care about what they were saying.

I also remember a lot of people swanning about offices doing very little, and a few people with heads down doing all the work. I remember weird pecking orders where the longer you had worked there, the less work you actually did.

I also remember in the days before the internet and email it seemed to be perfectly legitimate to spend hours on the phone chatting to friends, getting car insurance quotes etc. For the latter there was no other way really as they were all 9 to 5 services anyway.

It was reputed that a lot of the night shift just slept for most of the time (the factory manufactured photographic film and was in darkness, so entirely feasible that no one would notice).

I remember that pecking order thing too.

My first job was in a TV newsroom. Al scripts were typed in triplicate x2 on electric typewriters and the autocue was typed on a paper roll, then cut up and stuck together again with glue as the running order changed. We had word processors and a fax machine with thermal paper (1988).

Huge pub ashtrays on all the desks; the room was just one big fog. There were always lots of heated arguments and the occasional fight - although I'm sure that continues in newsrooms all over the world.

Many of the women there wore Benetton clothes and Poison perfume too.

I think we used to call mobiles "carphones".

We had to be addressed as and call each miss or mrs surname on the shopfloor.

smoking at desks

big swithchboards with metal plug things you had to put in (hopefully) the right hole.

Most employers didn't mind training you on the job on computers as long as you could touchtype.

At college to learn to type, keys were covered so you couldn't look so had to learn to do it by feel.

electric typewriters if you were lucky, manual if not.

Interviews were really easy and fairly short.

People smoked in lectures and seminars.

There was a lot more larking about at work and drinking at lunchtimes.

Ooh it's all coming back to me, one of my very first jobs was in a drugs rehab place and they had one of those (not photo)copiers on a roller thing with sticky ink. Can't remember what it was called.

My first job in 1988 was as a performing musician, and I doubt that job's changed much.

But when I started university I was still writing my essay drafts longhand and typing them up on a portable manual typewriter. My DH still thinks I type REALLY LOUDLY (but boy do I type fast )

I remember my (female) colleague was called into out boss's office and he told her not too wear a trouser suit to work but had to wear a skirt. This was in an office, not in a public role with a uniform!

You had to type a "stencil" for the roller copier thing. You couldn't make any mistakes on it, couldn't correct it, I seem to remember. Trying to remember what it was called.

Was it a photostat machine?

Ah just looked it up, it was 'cyclostyle'. Yes, I have cyclostyled paper. If I remember the originals were like thick carbon paper that you could type on?

Photostat was an early photocopy, a precursor of xerography dontchaknow.

Jean - I also worked in an office in the early 90s where I had to share a computer with another girl. It was on a sort of turntable and we had to swivel it round to our side of the desk to use it. I remember the day when this machine was retired and we each got our own computer - with Windows and a mouse - so exciting!

My first job was in the late 1980s and I used an electronic typewriter. This had a memory and could store around 500 words, enough to write a letter. There was a tiny screen into which you typed the text. Then you pressed print and the typewriter typed out the letter for you automatically. It seemed so modern at the time.

I remember we had a computer which we had to run this looooong length of kevlar(?) tape with punched holes in to program it every time we wanted to use it. The computer equipment fairly filled the room!

Also the ahem banter would be sexual harrassment now.

I worked at the Golden Arches from age 13-16 to support my horsey habit. To this day, I still "clean as I go" .

Oh Eight I remember those machines, I loved those - were they Phillips? Being able to go back and delete something without using tippex was revolutionary. I had one but it would only print one line (when you hit the carriage return).

My mum remembers people smoking in the office when she was pregnant with me (1982), and her SIL getting drunk at her leaving do for maternity leave, unthinkable these days.

I started working in 2002 for a company that had a DOS based computer system . They finally updated to a modern operating system after I'd been bewildered there for 6mts.

I couldn't get my head around three things: the two colour text only screen, no mouse and if you push one wrong button and your entire client database would print on that holey paper- and take two days to print cause you couldn't cancel it!

the only job i had in the 80s was a saturday girl in saxone where i earned £1.66 per hour... two years later i moved to clarks for £2.52 per hour and was well chuffed

I remember fondly my first couple of jobs,
using carbon paper in the typewriter so I didn't have to write the orders out twice white copy for the customer yellow for our files.
Everything in paper files. the only electronic stuff was in the room with the accountant and he had a huge computer monitor and keyboard.
We felt very modern because the office had button phones not dial phones.

God what a fab thread!!! I worked for Nat west starting in 1988. MY wage was £330 a month (including 'large town allowance')We all smoked and had massive glass ashtrays with the NW logo. Spent most lunches in the pub and went out to Manchester's ST Ann's Square every Friday night from 5pm... Horns..Ronnie's Cafe Bar and the Conservatory..... Age 17, not a care in the world..... Best time of my life!!!!!!

was cyclostyle the make, like hoover for vacuum cleaners? I think we called it a duplicator, but not sure Yes very thick sticky sort of carbon paper with a top layer to it.

Also for us old Natwest types.... The B90 machine!!!!!!

Gerstetner stencil?

I remember telexes and fax machines (and trying to sort out where one fax ended and the next one began first thing in the morning) and as I worked in a hotel back then I remember how much guests were charged for sending and receiving them and it was about ten times what you would pay now if you even had to go somewhere to do that (and who sends a telex these days?). We had credit card imprinters instead of scanners and each copy (pink, white, yellow) had to go to its assigned destination. All bills were on the same coloured-type carbon paper and the same sort of system obtained. Windows was the big new thing in word processing. The audio-visual department had overhead projectors and other cutting edge equipment for business meetings, hired out at a huge cost, and transparencies for sale..

I also remember a huge copier called the Kodak 500 that took up most of a small room. It could copy vast documents, collate, do two-sided copying, staple and spit out jobs at a terrific clip but it constantly broke down. We were all sent off to do a day's training so we could operate it. I spent a lot of time up to my shoulders in the bowels of that machine fishing out staples and crumpled paper.

In school back in the late 70s and early 80s, it was known that there was a computer, but it was kept locked away in its own special room..