Was 17 in 1982, great times. 😁
Was in my second year at work, going to college (day release), got my driving licence and was out every night!
The office where I was working at the time would be unrecognisable to people now with an ashtray on every desk and a permanent smokey atmosphere but not a single computer. Sign-in book at the beginning of the day (where a red line was draw at 8am showing who was late!) and we always called the senior manager "sir" (when he deemed to come down from his ivory tower). As a trainee, I knew my place.
My next office was even better, a proper licenced bar off the restaurant where you could drink at lunchtimes and then after work, staying late into the evening. Various company clubs and associations used the bar, at least one a night. Tea trolly came round the office every morning and afternoon where a nice bun or cake was available to go with the tea (out of a huge urn and no coffee).
I often had to go down to London (and other city's) for training courses and I remember how grimy London always looked, going around the West-End in the evening was fun at the time but I was never tempted back out of choice.
The fact that I was in work, doing a college course and already travelling around the UK, my parents had no qualms about leaving me home alone while they went abroad for 2-3 weeks as they knew I could be trusted (something that from reading threads on MN, seems unusual to some).
We didn't have a phone at home back then (wasn't that we couldn't afford one, M&D just didn't want one) so calls were made from the phone box at the end of our road, sneaking a call through the operator at work or popping to see my nan and using her phone (leaving the money for the call on the telephone table).
A friend had a phone but it was a party line so if the neighbour was using it, they had to wait until they finished.
We had a video (from Radio Rentals) but one thing that was NEVER recorded was TOTP as that was compulsory viewing (7pm Thursday?) and you went out afterwards.
As all my crowd were working we all had (old) cars so were very mobile and would travel around (more than some), would often go across to another town for the evening. The fact that we were all driving at 17-18 seems strange nowadays where youngsters seem to rely on M&D more. That said, the cars were rather old but we learnt to DRIVE them (choke knob with a clothes peg on it, no power steering or electric windows and headlights that glowed like glow-worms). Also we all knew how to change a wheel or do a jump start (a regular occurrence with our old tubs 😖).