What did people do in 1985?

[Syt]

I just remembered ordering books in the 80s. We had a bookshop in our little town, and I was always impressed that if you ordered a book it would usually be there next day. Their catalog (outside the publisher catalogs they had that you could take for free) was on micro-fiche. You told them the book you wanted, they'd look it the ISBN number. They had a little box with a num pad attached to a phone line. Once a day they had a time window during which they could transmit their ISBNs to the central storage in Hamburg via this box, and the delivery would be there early next morning. For ordering back issues of Star Wars comics, they had to write post cards to the publisher - they didn't like doing that much for us.

[Josephus]

Offices were noiser, because -- although word processors were becoming the norm-- there were still a lot of typewriters being used. I remember being interviewed at a law office for a proofreader position around 1987 and being walked through the typing pool.  Phones were louder. They rang with that loud shrill. And because instant messaging wasn't a thing, there was a lot more hustle and bustle.
Oh...and those intra office mail deliveries. The ones with the brown envelopes and you signed your name when you received it and then used the same envelope to send a document to someone else in the office.

Alas, pinching secretaries' bottoms was frowned upon then.

[viper37]

Prompted by a Twitter comment I saw which I've been thinking about for a while since. But what did people do in offices in, say, the mid-80s?

It was before the internet and before common PCs (I think - at least in the UK) and I just have no concept of what office work looked like at that point. The best I have is Mad Men (typing, smoking and sexual harassment) and maybe that's what the workplace was like but I feel like that's pretty rarefied and rather different from, say, working for a bank or a manufacturer or a law firm in 1985.

So in the same way as people of my generation have started chatting about the things from our childhood that just don't make sense now (growing up pre-smartphone is the big one) - I wonder for people who were working before the internet and maybe before PC adoption what was your working life like? So much of my day is spent on my emails I can't really work out what else people did - where there just lots of phone calls?

The only thing I can think of is I remember an older partner saying that he thought the introduction of track changes ruined law because it encouraged people to spend ages fighting over trivialities. When you had to physically read and make changes you prioritised more

Edit: AND - incidentally how did you even do track changes between two sides? I get that it'd be red pen (because it's still red pen often) internally but in terms of showing a mark-up did someone re-type the entire agreement with red ink or bold for changes?

I followed my dad to his employers office on fridays&saturdays.  Back then, the standard work week was 44h, so lots of people worked on saturdays.

There were tables, pen & paper.  There would have been one secretary per manager, she would be the one with the dactylo.  They had mainframe computers by the late 80s, mostly used for secretaries and accounting.  Bidding was done on paper spreadsheet, plans were blue, printed with some form of alcohol powder.  They received invitation to bid by telex.  The youngest boy in the room was in charge of going downstairs and bringing coffee up for everyone (7-8 people), all for a 10cents tip.

[crazy canuck]

One thing I heard from older colleagues when I was working at a construction company, and other people - up till the 90s/00s, if you had no or little formal education you could always go and work construction or similar. Nowadays you need tons of certificates and exams to be even let near a construction job.

That is what I did during and after high school. Worked as a labourer on construction sites, farms etc.  Back then the only thing that mattered was having a strong back and steel toe boots.   That started changing here with safety regulations in the late 80s (there were a number of deaths in construction industry) which required proper training.  And the creation of a vocational institute to provide the training programs. 

[grumbler]

Prompted by a Twitter comment I saw which I've been thinking about for a while since. But what did people do in offices in, say, the mid-80s?

It was before the internet and before common PCs (I think - at least in the UK) and I just have no concept of what office work looked like at that point. The best I have is Mad Men (typing, smoking and sexual harassment) and maybe that's what the workplace was like but I feel like that's pretty rarefied and rather different from, say, working for a bank or a manufacturer or a law firm in 1985.

So in the same way as people of my generation have started chatting about the things from our childhood that just don't make sense now (growing up pre-smartphone is the big one) - I wonder for people who were working before the internet and maybe before PC adoption what was your working life like? So much of my day is spent on my emails I can't really work out what else people did - where there just lots of phone calls?

The only thing I can think of is I remember an older partner saying that he thought the introduction of track changes ruined law because it encouraged people to spend ages fighting over trivialities. When you had to physically read and make changes you prioritised more

Edit: AND - incidentally how did you even do track changes between two sides? I get that it'd be red pen (because it's still red pen often) internally but in terms of showing a mark-up did someone re-type the entire agreement with red ink or bold for changes?

I was working in an office in 1985, and we had only minicomputers (small mainframes, not microcomputers as today's desktops were first called) and some fairly sizable word processors (with these giant 10" floppy disks).  Only a very few people worked with computers and word processors.  The rest of us had pen and paper and handheld calculators.

the valuable guys in my office were the graphic artists (not computer graphics; hand-drawn graphics) that could make your reports look like a million bucks or a million sucks, depending on whether they liked you and whether the bosses were going to see it.

At the start of the day you say the folks in Documents to get your classified working papers from their safes, and at the end of the day you dropped them off.  Eventually, we dropped that system for safes in every room because we just had too many people to process info security from a central location.

One of the keys to keep the bosses, artists, and secretaries happy is to avoid typing and adding graphics before you had to to meet a deadline, because changes were manpower-intensive.  There was a lot of interaction between members of the team because everyone could only do a small portion of the job, and the way to tell people what you'd done was to show and tell in a conference room.  It felt a lot more like teamwork than the later, networked PC office did.

[11B4V]

In the Army at that time stationed at Ft Rucker,  AL. with the Pathfinder company. Trained hard and played hard.

[mongers]

In the Army at that time stationed at Ft Rucker,  AL. with the Pathfinder company. Trained hard and played hard.

[HisMajestyBOB]

One of my first jobs was putting paper personnel files into the correct personnel folder at my public university. Basically looking for the right filing cabinet and putting the paper in the right folder.

This was around 2004, but I imagine it was pretty similar to how it was 20 years prior.

[11B4V]

Does anyone remember the card catalogs at the libraries?

[Jacob]

This picture is from 1985.

I believe it's a fair representation of the average office smoke break.

[Syt]

https://officesnapshots.com/articles/must-read-the-office-of-the-future-from-1985/

"Are word processors, computer terminals, and printers turning your office into something that looks like a set for a television serial with a science fiction theme?

It's a direction that will become even more noticeable in the future, says Lawrence Lerner, an architect specializing in office design. According to Lerner, whose firm, Environetics International recently designed a prototype office of the future, changes will be necessary to accomodate new technology.

The prototype office features optical scanners (you've probably seen them at the supermarket checkout counter) and multiple flat screens that can hang on the wall like a picture or sit on a desk like a placemat. Printers that take information directly from the optical scanner and churn out paper copies are also likely to be featured.

In the Environetics office of the future, several workstations are arranged inside a dome-like interior structure so that all who work together are in the same cluster. Instead of the windowed executive offices of today, located around the perimeter of a modern building with clerical workers accommodated in a large windowless center section, tomorrow's office will accommodate those who work together in the same or nearby clusters.

The individual workstations will have less drawer and surface space than at present but they will accomodate more computer components.

As many as nine page sized screens may be found at each station. Each will be capable of displaying information stored in a number of different computer files. The telephone will be an important component since it will be used to carry on conversations, as at present, and so call up information from databases elsewhere. The phone will facilitate conferences with colleagues in several cities at the same time. Once a "meeting" is over, the information discussed will be updated and refiled automatically.

Privacy and sound control will be achieved by collapsible dome-like structures within whose walls will be located heat, ventilating and air conditioning services. These domes will be constructed from woven panels of glass and nylon fibers that are embedded with lead. The lead would make the fabric dense, therefore soundproof, according to Lerner.

Technology is also likely to lead to change in the office social routine. The bulletin board of today with its announcements of retirements and items for same won't be necessary. Instead, individual workers, each of whom will have access to a computer, will be able to call up the bulletin board on the screen and read what's there when they wish.

Will this mean that trips to the watercooler will be a thing of the past? Not necessarily, says Lerner. Breaks in the routine like a walk down the hall will still be a worker's prerogative. Though some observers predict that more individuals will work from home, communicating via computer. Lerner thinks most people will continue to work in an office environment.

The office is a social environment that satisfies the need for human contact, and so it will persist, he says.

No matter how technology changes the looks of the office for most of us, the private executive office is likely to continue in all its lonely splendor for the company's top executives, according to Susan Szenasy, author of several books in the "Office Book Design Series" which is published by Facts on File.

A private office is a reward for the individual and also a symbol to others that a person has arrived at the top of the hierarchy.

"Once executives attain a certain level of power, they seem to feel a luxurious office is deserved and even that it is required of them." she said."

Source: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0DssAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Mc4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6523,7100934

[Eddie Teach]

This picture is from 1985.

I believe it's a fair representation of the average office smoke break.

Did they have "casual Friday" back then?   

[mongers]

Does anyone remember the card catalogs at the libraries?

Sure, also I found myself being nostalgic about the bookshop using a micro-film catalogue to order a book, that Syt posted about up thread; I'm Old, real Old. 

[Josephus]

This picture is from 1985.

I believe it's a fair representation of the average office smoke break.

Really don't think famous popstars where at average smoke breaks in 1985

[jimmy olsen]

Does anyone remember the card catalogs at the libraries?

Yes!