Sometimes, when watching an old show or a period piece, you get a glimpse of what offices were truly like in the past. Cigarette smoke, strict dress codes, and not a single computer in sight, for example.Someonewanted to hearfrom netizens “who are 50+ years old, what has changed the most about working when you started working vs working nowadays?” Older folks shared their best examples. So prepare for a blast from the past, get comfortable as you scroll through, be sure to upvote your favorite examples, and share your own if you have any. We also got in touch with LightningStrikes818 to learn more.This post may includeaffiliate links.
Sometimes, when watching an old show or a period piece, you get a glimpse of what offices were truly like in the past. Cigarette smoke, strict dress codes, and not a single computer in sight, for example.
Someonewanted to hearfrom netizens “who are 50+ years old, what has changed the most about working when you started working vs working nowadays?” Older folks shared their best examples. So prepare for a blast from the past, get comfortable as you scroll through, be sure to upvote your favorite examples, and share your own if you have any. We also got in touch with LightningStrikes818 to learn more.
This post may includeaffiliate links.
I’ve been working in healthcare for 33+ years. At the beginning (late 80s/early 90s), everything was patient centered. Now it’s payment centered.
Bored Pandagot in touch with LightningStrikes818 and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Firstly, we were curious to learn why they asked this particular question to the internet.“It’s a topic that I have had on my mind for a bit. I feel like young and old generations are clashing on a lot of things in general right now, whether in the workplace, politics, general cultural and social values, etc. I’m a 28-year-old man. As much as I can complain about things in the modern workplace, I didn’t experience what work was like for people who are 50+ years old who started their careers and first jobs in a very different world. I feel like old people love to say how much easier younger people have it now and only complain while young people love to say how much easier older people had it and only complain about us!”
Bored Pandagot in touch with LightningStrikes818 and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Firstly, we were curious to learn why they asked this particular question to the internet.
“It’s a topic that I have had on my mind for a bit. I feel like young and old generations are clashing on a lot of things in general right now, whether in the workplace, politics, general cultural and social values, etc. I’m a 28-year-old man. As much as I can complain about things in the modern workplace, I didn’t experience what work was like for people who are 50+ years old who started their careers and first jobs in a very different world. I feel like old people love to say how much easier younger people have it now and only complain while young people love to say how much easier older people had it and only complain about us!”
The people at the top earned a great salary and everyone else a good salary.Now the people at the top subscribe to the pirate life, take everything, give nothing back.
I watched office work go from sedentary to virtually immobile. We used to retrieve paper files, pass memos around, consult with coworkers in other sections and floors. Now everything is available on the screen in front of us, everything can be shared with a few clicks. It’s convenient, but so unhealthy.
Benefits.I used to get 20 vacation days and 10/12 sick days. Now I get 20 PTO days. So, that’s a one-third reduction in benefits.I always purchase the best health insurance my employer offers, now the best is garbage. Twenty years ago, I was hospitalized, tons of tests and specialists, private room, final bill: $0. My kid was born five weeks premature, spent four weeks in NICU, final bill: $0. Now, if I go to the doctor, every single thing costs extra.All the benefits have been dramatically reduced, but profits skyrocket.
People smoking indoors. Clouds of smoke everywhere in the office and no way for a nonsmoker to avoid it. That was the norm so you just had to suck it up.
Skirts/dresses and pantyhose required of women in many offices through 1990’s.
Doctor. Less likely to be literally worked to death due to so called “safe hour” rules where 23 and 26 hour shifts without sleep are now banned. Officially anyway. Also the newer residents are pushing back against unpaid overtime and taking hospital management to court and winning for unpaid wages.
“I also personally love the ability to work from home. That really changed my life for the better. I used to go into the office sometimes 7 days a week (yes, 7 at the worst). I had no energy to do anything else after doing this. I’m so thankful remote work has become normalized.”
We took a company van with a logo on it to take out of town guests to a strip club. I don’t even think I can say that out loud at work today.
Having to go to the bank to cash my paycheck
Customer service: how rude patrons have become
Hardly anybody has a pension anymore.
I’m 42 but feel like I want to chime in.Health and safety has changed loads. You wouldn’t get away with half the s**t we did when I was 17
“A big theme of the replies seemed to be that how much work we get done in a limited amount of time along with less resource waste along the way is hugely improved, but the wages and what we as a society get out of work has not kept up accordingly. Which is sad, in my opinion. Think of how much more work people would do if they actually felt financially, emotionally, and professionally fulfilled. Corporate greed killed optimism in the workplace, in my opinion.”
In the 1980s, people getting s**t-faced drunk at lunch was a regular occurrence. I’ve only seen it twice in the last 5 years.Flexible time and WFH didn’t exist.
My first health insurance was Blue Cross, top level. Cost me nothing monthly and I had $5 copays.
Gifts from vendors were a thing. I used to get things like free bottles of booze from enterprise software companies we licensed from. That dried up years ago.
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Working for a company for many years was seen as honorable and a sign you were a good worker. Now it’s viewed as someone complacent, scared of change and stupid for not salary hopping. I don’t disagree though I’ve been at my company for a long time and it’s anything but complacent and always changing.
People used to answer their business phones.
My mom said back in the 80s some people would do c*ke at work. Also a lot of sexual harassment happened a lot and no one ever did anything about it. This was at a government job…
Men had to wear suit/tie to work every day and women had to wear what our company defined as ‘interview attire’ (professional dress/pantsuit). I remember when our first ‘jeans Friday’ was implemented, our manager wore jeans to support the effort, but they were ironed with a crease down the middle - hilarious. Now, for the same role at the same company, people work remote and wear sweats or whatever the hell they want.
It was expected and accepted to take office supplies home. Almost everyone did it and it wasn’t looked at like the evil act it is today. (No, I’m not dying to “steal” from my job, but it’s just an interesting difference.) Health insurance… I don’t think I need to elaborate on how that’s gone Christmas bonuses were much more common. Damn, I keep trying to think of changes for the better lol… Oh, well, at least the pay’s the same
Paper. Lots of paper. Before email, there were people (secretaries or admins) who would take a memo someone printed out on their computer, make physical copies, and either walk around to every executive’s desk, or put into inter-office mail. This memo could be to a few people, one person, or for a general announcement needed to go to everyone.For expediency, these memos would also be posted in public areas (lunchroom, messaging board) if it was a general notice. These memos were often routed from the head manager throughout the department if it was more for general information.We once had a wave of new hires (about 20 people in our company of 400) and each got their own announcement. So, 20x50 copies = 2 reams of paper. Copied. Hand carried or inter-department mailed. For one set of announcements.Oh, and each department admin had their own routing slip (small piece of paper with each person in the department’s name) that was stapled to the announcement. When you got the memo, you read it, crossed your name off and gave it to the next person on the list.That’s where “they must not have gotten the memo” comes from.
so when i started working my first job was to install a computer and printer into a bank where they had 50 people typing form letters for late mortgage payments. they had a form and they would line up the blank areas of the form and type in the numbers. imagine a giant rectangular room with desks, each one holding an inbox and an outbox and a typerwriter. manual typerwriter. ibm selectrics hadn’t come up. i installed the computer, a copy of wordstar with mailmerge and when this room of workers watched all of the letters they needed to produce in a week come out of that printer before lunch they all knew that their jobs were over. banks are not sentimental.
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It used to be that when you took time off/vacation, you were actually off. Technology has made it so that we are always “on,” and therefore the expectation is to work and be available to work regardless of where we are and what are status is. I cannot recall the last time that I had time OFF away from my office. Even when on holiday overseas, I am pressed and pulled upon to work. Some thrive on this, I simply find it upsettingly exhausting.
Workplace was a lot looser in how coworkers interacted with one another. I would say there was more camaraderie back then. Now no one even wants to work around other people, let alone socialize.
I am a doctor and the current crop of incoming docs can’t quite wrap their heads around the fact that there are certain aspects of the job that do not lend themselves easily to ‘lifestyle balance’. They expect high salaries, easily predictable hours, etc etc. It is simply the case that taking care of human beings who are sick, scared, or both is complicated and sometimes (not every day) intrusive to a simple schedule. What they do not see though is that the burnout in medicine comes often from trying and failing to control variables instead of embracing the variability and instead throwing yourself into the aspect of helping people.Of course pointing any of this out has strong ‘old man yells at clouds’ vibes, so mostly we just spend a lot of time waiting for good candidates and turning away tons of mediocre applicants and taking care of our panels until the right docs come along.
Drinking culture around work. Back when I started work in the mid 90’s, it wasn’t completely uncommon for those of us in our mid 20’s to go out for a few or more after work on any old night.Now, it’s basically never - the drinking and bar aspect is gone, replaced with closet alcoholism.
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