Looking back to 1982

Back in 1982, my trusty Bakelite alarm clock rang very loudly and very early. I hit it hard and then leapt up to start running the bath whilst I shaved. Today was the day I was to start my first role as a Trainee Personnel Officer.

(Translation: In 2022, my mobile woke me, and I went for a shower after a quick beard trim, today I was about to become an unpaid Intern as a Trainee People Advisor). Warning – no more translations after this one; ask an oldie to explain!

I put on my regulation three-piece grey suit for only the second time (the first was the interview) and ate half a slice of toast. I was too nervous for any more than that. The bus was on time, and I arrived outside the Town Hall thirty minutes too early, so I looked in the windows of the estate agents, wondering how anyone could afford to buy a flat for ￡18,000. The broker could get me an 85% mortgage of ￡9,000 on my ￡4,500 salary. Dream on.

At 7.55 am, I presented myself to the receptionist, who asked me to wait, and at 8.00 am precisely, I was walking upstairs with Miss Whitaker, the Personnel Administrator. We stopped off at a window in the wall of the corridor. Miss Whitaker rang the bell, the window slid open, and Mrs Mellow was introduced as the Stock Controller. I was given a pencil and an eraser, a fountain pen, a bottle of Quink ink, a Pro-Forma Memo Pad and a 12-inch ruler. I had to sign a form after Mrs Mellow had explained that I could have a new pencil by returning the stub, which had to be one and a half inches or less. The ink bottle had to be empty. If I lost anything, I would have to buy replacements.

The next stop was Miss Whitaker’s office. It was wall to wall shelving and files, with a set of locked cabinets saying “Personnel Records”. There I completed endless paperwork before being taken to meet my supervisor, Mr Ship. As the door opened, clouds of smoke poured out. It turned out that he was a chain smoker. He was also a Jordie, although his accent had softened. Almost every conversation started with the words, “When I was at the shipyard, we would….”

My first training was going to be in memo writing. This was an art form. And my first task was to write to the supervisor of a finance clerk to remind him that he had to undertake a probationary review. I learned that I had to write the memo on the Pro-forma sheet in neat ink. I took this to the typing pool (which was next door to Personnel) and placed it in the in-tray next.

“Good Morning, everyone!” I said, this being my first visit to the pool (which consisted of twelve women in a medium-sized room with a supervisor who walked around, looking stern).

“Quiet!” Shouted the supervisor at me. She came over and told me off for “disturbing my girls” and then proceeded to explain that I had to put my memo at the bottom of the in-tray, “You don’t want a reputation on your first day, do you?”.

I gave a cheeky smile to ‘the girls’, waved and left. Afterwards, I thought that she had created far more of a disturbance by admonishing me than I could ever have done by just saying good morning to them, but hey-ho.

The next day my typed memo arrived at my desk. I now presented it to Mr Ship. Once checked, he gave it to The Council Personnel Officer, who signed it and sent it to The Council Finance Officer, who gave it to the Finance Manager, who gave it to the Assistant Finance Manager, who then wrote a memo back to me, thanking me for reminding him!

Skip forward a few months, and there was pandemonium in the typing pool. The first two Wang Word Processors had arrived, and within minutes of trying them out, the supervisor was in tears. An unthinking technician, there to instal the devices, had openly laughed at her, in front of all the ‘girls’, after she had applied Tipex directly to the green screen monitor, attempting to rectify a mistake!

Life is certainly far easier these days. Often the induction is completed before you arrive for your first day and smoking in offices has been banned for ages. And computers have certainly led to big leaps in productivity. Unfortunately, flats are still not affordable for those starting out!

What are your first memories of work, as we start 2022?

(Names have been changed)