I remember typing pools...

Ah the memories .....

My first proper job was with Tesco - started December 1984.  There were two vacancies for Technical Writers in the HR & Training Department - I got one and a lad the same age as me got the other.  I was paid £5,000 a year and he got £6,000 because he was male !  

We had to handwrite the distance learning training manuals and the typing pool would type up my scribbles using a Wang word processor.  The text would print out on that paper with holes down the side.  We had a graphics department who would cut and stick the text onto artwork and a photographic department who would take the photos, which were printed in our own darkroom and then also stuck onto the artwork.

We had a fabulous canteen, we took morning and afternoon breaks, and everyone spent two hours in the pub next door on a friday.

I used to roam the country visiting stores in my company car, and spent many a day stuck in traffic on the motorways and unable to let anyone know where I was because no one had a mobile phone. 

When email arrived, many years later, it was white out of a green screen, and we had two or three terminals for a department of about 40 people. 

Ah those were the days !

In my first job as Secretary in a firm of Consulting Engineers in 1976 I had a manual typewriter.  I then got an electric typewriter where the characters took up different amounts of space so if you made a mistake and had to use the Tippex sheet you had to try and re-position the paper in the exact spot (an "m" took up 5 spaces, an "l" 2).  When preparing reports for clients you typed up the first draft  and any amendments, for example inserting a new paragraph or moving paragraphs around, had to be done with scissors and magic tape.  When the report was photocopied you (hopefully) couldn't see the joins!

When working in an accountants office in 1986 we worked in a bank of four desks put together.  One woman smoked and had an ashtray (usually filled) on her desk in amongst all the files and paperwork.  No-one dared to complain about the smell, smoke or potential fire hazard!

My very first job after leaving University was working in a Ship Chandlers export office.  We had to type all the export paperwork on manual machines using carbons and I wasn't allowed to make a mistake.  All the older staff were called Mr or Mrs but the junior staff were all first names.  I wasn't allowed to wear trousers to work as this was not deemed as appropriate dress - the MD didn't like girls in trousers (I think that's why I wear them all the time now).  The days were very rigid - you started at 9 and finished at 5.30 - breaks were timed and you were never late.  All my breaks were taking in the canteen - we would never have thought about going out for lunch.  It was a strict enviroment but sometimes I pass the disused builiding where I worked and I think about my days there as happy ones!!

Ah yes, Clare, those were the days - when the shop workers got reasonable time off on Thursday afternoons and Sundays, and you had to find imaginative things to do with your leisure time instead of trekking round the shops...

We actually worked less hard in those pre-computer days than we do now. on average. (I'm talking about the seventies here, when I was in my first proper job).  Although one thing I don't miss is using Gestetner duplicating machines with stencils and utterly indelibly printer ink that unfailingly found its way onto your white shirt cuffs even if you rolled your sleeves up. And that red correcting fluid with a smell that blew your mind...

Before Tippex or photocopiers we had long, pre-prepared stencil sheets that you corrected with some evil smelling flourescent pink stuff.   As I remember it (which is probably pretty iffy), you had to somehow attach the stencil to a machine and then crank a handle to get the copies.  And the stencil always used to fall off, or rip.  I can't remember what this system was called, though, which is another thing that has changed dramatically since I started work in the late 1970s.  Back then I could remember whole telephone directories of information and now my memory ... sorry, what was this thread about, again???

I do have one lovely memory of working for the Council I started with straight from school more years ago than I care to admit - I had to pass the police station and court house on my journey to and from work so was always given the post for both establishments to deliver on my way home.  One night I had a heavy bundle of court papers to deliver and the Mayor's chauffeur happened to be on his way to pick up the Mayor for an event so offered me a lift.

You should have seen my neighbours' faces when I was dropped off out of the back of a huge, shiny black, vintage,  chauffeur driven Daimler!

Viv

I have just remembered being interviewed for a secretarial job for the Regional Director of a well known insurance company and being told (by his current secretary) that I would need to collect his evening paper at 4.30 pm every day and (using the iron and ironing board tucked away in the coat cupboard) have it ironed and on his desk with a cup of Earl Grey at 5.00 pm!

They too still had a Directors' Dining Room, loos and parking spaces and, although you may think it was the 1940s, it was actually 1993!  I didn't take the job as I may have beaten him with the newspaper and that wouldn't have been good!

 J

I was reminded the other day of a story by Grandpa told me about when he was a partner in an architect's practice

They had two offices, one in Derby where he was based and one in Nottingham.

He would often leave the office in Derby at 3pm saying it was time to go to Nottingham - I am realiably informed that he never made it any further than his house just outside the city :) No one ever found out, the joys of the world pre mobiles and blackberries.

@Elizabeth; to be honest, it might be easier these days to pull the wool over the eyes of colleagues using mobiles and blackberries and virtual office facilities!

Naughty Grandpa, he sounds like he's great fun ;-)

@Susi; I was trying to be restrained amongst such august HR colleagues.  If I'm truthful, I was thinking of the iron!