How times have changed
I agree with all these posts over the years. But what I would like to share how things changed in the workplace too.
In my first job as an accounting assistant, studying at TAFE (and the only “girl in my class in 1961) I used an old handwritten ledgers, journal books and a gigantic Sunstrand “posting machine” that kept track of the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. But if anything happened and you were out of balance it was a huge job rechecking back to your source documents and the ledgers. Then too to write a demand letter to a recalcitrant debtor you needed to type on an old clunker typewriter and remember to hit the carriage really hard for it to return to the margin for the next line. God forbid you made a typo, as you would have to erase (yes with a rubber) the wrong letter or word) on all copies (being careful to keep the carbon copies free of the bits of rubber that came off), then line it all up again and correct. If that didn’t work or looked too messy for the boss you have to retype the whole thing. The ledgers and journals were tallied by a hand pulled adding machine or comptometer. Key in the numbers, crank the handle, key in the next number, crank the handle endlessly. Initially we didn’t even have a paper tape, so if you made an error you had to go back and start all over again. Once the tapes came out it was much easier to find a mistake.
In those days the companies had all the power and dictated the dress code. No low riding jeans with muffin tops displayed for all to see. I still remember Valentine’s Day 1972 when the CEO of the company I worked for in California deemed it now appropriate to allow the “girls” to wear pants suits. (And he got a shock to discover many of the mini dresses the girls had been wearing were in fact the top of their more modest pants suits.)
We believed that if we accepted a pay cheque it meant we were obligated to obey the boss, do whatever was asked of us in the workplace and smile. None of this “it’s not in my job description”. The work was certainly harder and the environment less OH&S friendly, but the volumes were way smaller even in the larger oil companies where I worked. Computers made the job easier, but the stresses increased with the volumes and the tougher environment to get people to pull together for the coporate good. We had loyalty in those days, and for the most part the companies respected us in return. AH – the good old days. Thanks for the memories, makes me SO happy to be retired! ;)
..many of the mini dresses the girls had been wearing were in fact the top of their more modest pants suits
Heh, heh, I got a laugh out of that. Close on 5.00pm on Friday the girls used to slip off to the Ladies (well, they were ladies not women back then), drop their pants* and put on the make-up to go out for drinks. No carousing late, no-one could afford that and the public transport stopped early anyhow.
*OK, only the trouser pants then.
Very brief miniskirts were common at work. I remember the SYT (sweet young thing) who was told by someone in Personnel that seeing it was the day of the fire drill, everyone was required to clap their hands above their head to prove that clothing did not restrain them for the descent of the stairs. Upon hearing that she immediately obliged, much to our delight.
I was only in that office for a year, but it was a family and yes, the naive, attractive SYT was looked after as a matter of routine. She was treated like a young sister.