What's changed in the world of office work in the last 16 years?

[NineTwoFive]

I gave up my career 18 years ago when I had children and needed to become a carer for a relative not long after, and have been doing work-at-home stuff or manual work to fit around being a single mum/carer until now.

I am starting a new job in a couple of weeks, it's office-based and I am just feeling a bit apprehensive about starting again in my 50s.

The office attire is more casual than smart, I think I'd prefer to lean in to being a bit smarter than too casual, not least because I raise the age average by quite a lot and I want to make the effort.

Other than that, has much changed in office culture that I need to be aware of? It's a tech startup and most of the team are young guys who looked between 25-35. Two other women maybe a tiny bit older, I didn't see them at my interview though so didn't get a vibe for the how people dress there if female.

I am feeling really apprehensive in general that I can even do the work, too - tips for giving my ego a soothe/boost welcome too.

I’m the only female and oldest person in my tech office. The main thing you need to do is listen and ask questions about their policies. Examples:

Password locker - everything needs an account these days. There may be a policy of what locker to use, eg Dashlane. We monitor employees password health scores.

Teams / Slack - We use channels and chats for ALL internal comms and project work. we have a policy that you must “thumbs up” a post when you’ve read it. No internal emails at all.

How to spot spam / phishing stuff. The last thing you need as an older woman is to be the cause of a data leak / scam.

Meeting notes - we are paper free.

What is your role?

There is some advice here which makes me think some posters haven’t been in an office since the early 1990s. 15 years ago was 2011, folks - we used email, instant messaging, emojis and were paperless back then 😅

@NineTwoFive you’ll be grand. You’re allowed to speak to people in the office and there is plenty of life, chat and all the other stuff as well as AI, Teams and Slack, which are the only “new” things you’re likely to see. And you’ll be fine.

In the last 12 months, everything now involves some element of AI. It’s unbelievable the speed with which it’s been adopted.

I started working part time as a lettings assistant in a housing authority. We do have 3 desks assigned to us and others have their own desks. Meetings in booths are a thing. 121s (catchups), either weekly or monthly. Me and my boss and colleague use a notebook as it’s easier for us to keep on top of multiple tasks this way, 1 colleague is mid 40s, other 30s. We don’t really go for lunch but are planning a team brunch soon. I do sometimes print documents only so I have a copy to refer to. Sharepoint/teams/perkbox/mobile phones/Hybrid working are all common, payslips and other docs are online including diaries. Emails are the bane of my life but we all use them.

Clothes, agree with pp wear black trousers, neutral top first day and do wear smarter clothes for meetings. If you’re not a trainers girl don’t wear them! I don’t and neither does one colleague. I might wear some soon (black and leopard new balance). Nothing is posted but very occasionally something is posted, we have a post room. No one male compliments you (sexual harassment cases?!) and most people are mild mannered, no swearing, no arguments. If I did get upset or angry I’d just go to toilets or leave the office briefly. We have difficult clients and other providers so good humour is important. Health and wellbeing, GDPR, diversity and inclusion training. I wasn’t trained much in my job (but did ask and got as I needed something and the online tutorial didn’t cut it. I don’t use eg Excel, PowerPoint much, sometimes excel. I got a health and safety induction in person which was really good and a HR welcome/induction too. We have a treats area in our bank of desks. Things eg safety (we do house inspections) are sort of adhered to but I was surprised we didn’t have personal alert alarms (Suzy Lamplugh anyone?!) especially as some tenants (2 since I’ve been here) have come into our offices and created drama. Water bottles are a big thing. Showers are in our offices, you get bike loans and car lease loans amongst other offers. There’s a yoga class once a week too. Security guards are excellent (make friends with them), they also have an onsite subsidised cafe which is useful.

Away days and team days can be a common occurrence (yearly). Often either in same town city as you work or a 2-3 hour train ride. Train plane travel is still a thing. Team drinks/lunches/coffees are still common.

Everything is on Teams, Slack and SharePoint. You'll come to dread the sound of a call coming through on Teams.

There are systems galore that you have to login to (creating credentials overload). CRM, Accounts, HR, about a million spreadsheets. DocuSign instead of wet signatures.

Everyone whinges about the slightest thing and (in my experience) young people are fragile.

fire drills
drone drills
invacuations (shelter in building)
whole building evacuations (used to be affected floors only)

This, coupled with remote working, reduced office attendance, minimal F2F. There very little spontaneity, no being called into a conversation, no “go and speak to than man in the red tie”, time water-cooler moments. Everyone is silo’ed into their own little world, there is little oppurtunity for those random chats and organic knowledge sharing.

The good thing about Team meetings is that everyone’s name is displayed, so no more worrying about forgetting names.

Absolutely not the case in the three different office environments I’ve worked in the last five years. This idea that everyone’s sulking on their headphones is very overblown by some people who are determined to push a weird agenda.

Come and work in civil engineering, we all still talk to each other, and go outside to see the stuff getting built.

What’s the role?

I’m in my 50s and work in tech-adjacent start-up, as admin. I’m 20 years older than the next oldest. I dress casually, jeans and trainers, I wouldn’t wear jeans on a first day though. Don’t go corporate though either.

The biggest change for me in last 20 years is the lack of hierarchy. I feel like I can have a say in things, and am seen as equal.

Other things, agree with what people have mentioned - lots of working from home, working unusual hours, headphone use, no drinking culture. We do go for lunch together, but it is a very small company. Lots of use of slack instead of emails, and yes, lots of heart emojis, from both young men and women.

I'd rather not say more than I have about the company/role in case it's outing. But I think I have a better idea of clothing and culture, obviously I am aware culture changes from company to company, I just wanted a rough overview of general changes since I was last in an office environment.

Thank you all.

People didn’t react to emails with emojis though unless they typed them in.

IM wasn’t used in the same way either. Teams and Sharepoint have changed things hugely even in the last 2/3 years. And covid was the end of conference calls.

I think the biggest thing that's changed for me is the amount of mandatory training on a loop - not just the basic H&S stuff, but GDPR, DEI, bribery, cyber security etc that comes round on an annual basis! Be prepared to sit through some really cringeworthy online training with a quiz at the end to check you weren't just clicking through.

Post-covid, nobody does tea rounds but lunch is now often blocked out in calendars to stop meetings encroaching on it. I've found people are less and less likely to go the extra mile and work stupid hours, which is refreshing.

I'd also suggest caution with AI as some places don't allow it, we're allowed to use Copilot but not ChatGPT. Oh, and they are called "slide decks" these days, not presentations. No idea why! Best of luck with the new job.

Thank you!

You don’r HAVE to wear jeans, but al lot of people will and the engineers will often look like they’ve not even considered brushing their hair. When I was last at a start up I wore stylish clothes that for me were smart casual and for many of my colleagues were “nice”, mainly because I never turned up in trackies or a cropped gym hoodie. I was senior though, so that gave me an excuse!

This is such an interesting thread!

@NineTwoFive Do you want to tell us about your last experience of office work? And we can tell you what’s different?

We use a mix of email and Teams. On both young colleagues/clients sound v enthusiatic - lots if exclamation marks and smiley emojis (in addition to the proliferation of ❤️s) which sounds fake at first but you soon get used to it.

Lots of info disseminated via the numerous staff Whatsapp groups. No one ever uses a phone for actual calls.

None of these apply in my office.

We use email, I’ve never seen a heart emoji in work. People do chat in my office. There’s one group who get very silly. Lots of people love baking and there are always cakes and other food. Some people eat at their desks, lots sit together in the lobby and eat together. Almost everyone has a notebook and pen

meetings are both teams and in person catch ups. Opting out of a teams meeting you’re invited to h oh a very much frowned up. My company is obsessed with PowerPoint. You must always have your teams status on. I tend to check if someone is around before calling on teams but many people dont

i am one of the older people in my office. The 20 somethings are great and we all mix and chat really well

The other thing that will drive you round the bend OP is messages on Teams from people asking if they can call you. Particularly people that ask how you are before they send a separate message to see if they can call. Just call!

Oh, see I absolutely hate unannounced Teams calls, I appreciate people messaging first to check. I agree that one message is enough though.

Maybe the best advice for the OP is; be yourself, whatever you'll do you'll end up pissing someone off so don't worry about it!

There will be so much jargon that you’re expected to understand, and so much of it is cringeworthy.

Like it’s not a PowerPoint presentation, it’s a deck.

Every now and then I have to look something up when I’m thinking wtf does that mean..

If you can, just nod and mumble… uuum yes, and then scurry away to google..

In a similar position to OP - can I ask a question? With Teams, do people just sit around in an open plan office all having separate Teams meetings at the same time? Do you plug in headphones? And are they your own personal headphones from home?

In the case of my work (government)

Yes
Yes or someone would murder you
Headphones supplied

Be aware that you shouldnt chat on teams. It is monitored potentially. If you want to have a more casual work convo then switch to Whatsapp and make sure messages disappear.

I find colleagues are now making AI summaries of all calls whether you realize they are doing it or not. So watch what you're saying as it's being constantly monitored.