When I was a kid and I was dragged with my dad to the mechanics to get his old Datsun (frequently) repaired, I remember seeing all the girlie posters mechanics used to put on the ceilings (so they could glance at them while underneath the car I guess).
With sexual harassment laws and such those posters have long since disappeared but I must admit it was quite a sight for a six-year old boy to see a phograph of a nude woman sitting on a motorcycle :eek:
It was a sad time when the management banned those posters at my place of employment. No, the women weren’t nekkid, but they were well-endowed, in swimsuits, and were usually making provocative poses with odd props such as neon wrenchs.
They had never been visible beyond the machine shop. Nevertheless, we are in pharmaceutical research, so the rest of the building is full of folks who probably wouldn’t understand the tool poster gig.
I think the official decree came out in '93 or '94 to follow the changing times.
I think that they still have the posters, but they keep them inside cabinets and lockers.
Snap On Tools changed their calendars in '95. The women were less naked that the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, but, according to the company, their customers prefered the calendar to have just cars, not women & cars.
They had a nostalgic cheesecake appeal that, while no more realistic or hostile than a Norman Rockwell calendar, probably wasn’t appreciated by the growing customer base of women who earn their own money and bring their own cars in for service.
What about the Rigid Tool Company? Have they changed their calendars?
I can tell you they’re alive and well and still hanging in the windows and siding and other construction supply warehouses - at least around here.
When I used to work in an AF electrocincs shop (early '90s - almost exclusively male technicians), there was no rule against them as long as there was no actual nudity. Of course when a female tech put up a Chipendales (pants, no shirts) poster, there was quite a ruckus and it didn’t last a shift before someone tore it down. :rolleyes:
as a girly type, I’m glad as hell I don’t have to deal with those posters. They always grody’d me out, and I never felt comfortable with the mechanics, felt completely disrespected in their shops.
I am glad those posters are gone. THey still have them in small independent auto parts stores I’ve noticed.
Bleah.
I don’t miss em, cause I still got em! Its MY garage, and I’ll hang up any damn thing I want! 
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
Used to have those, not only in the garage I worked at , but also at my desk in an office job. Things were different in those days!
I think my first titty pictures that I ever saw was when me and my friends would ask to use the bathroom at the car repair shop down the street. The filthiest bathroom you can imagine, but it had a naked girly calendar.
I was 28.
Just kidding, we were all less than 10. A magical time…
I tried some modeling a while back and always dreamed of being featured on those posters/calendars and put on display. Now It will never happen. Shame.
I realize that this is a 22-year-old zombie thread, but I’ll throw in my own two cents.
A while back, the library I volunteer at got a large donation of “Hot Rod” and other car-restoration magazines. The ones from the mid 2010s featured roadsters and other old cars on the cover, and the ones from the 1990s featured roadsters and other old cars on the cover, with attractive white bikini models standing next to them.
The times, they are a-changing!
I worked at Prudhoe Bay (arctic Alaska) back in the 80’s. Men were rough and the women really had to be just as or more so. Plenty of “traditional” girlie posters in the men’s envirovac stalls, but the women’s stalls topped them: instead of static poses the naked dudes were very alert and active. I found it hilarious but I’m sure it wasn’t to everyone’s tastes.
That’s well and fine but machine ships, fabrication shops, and other manufacturing facilities aren’t bank vaults. Customers, vendors, auditors, and other visitors walk around the shops, and girlie posters look tawdry and unprofessional.
I have visiting more such places than anyone on the SDMB, I am quite sure, and there absolutely is a negative correlation between girlie posters and the quality and reliability of the work done in the facility.
Images of them can be found on art sites.
That quote was from 22 years ago… Wow!
I don’t think I have seen any of the old-school pinups in work environments in the intervening years, and with good reason.
A few years back, the landscape company I worked for had a calendar or two hanging in the mechanics shop. I think a relatively tame one near the door and a racier one inside the locked tool cage. Probably couldn’t get away with it in a more public environment but those guys kept the fleet and small engines (and our personal vehicles) running for decades so I don’t think it really reflected on their abilities as mechanics.
Hot Rod, and maybe Car Craft, even had “Swimsuit Issues”. I guess their store sales were slacking. Seemed really crass.
Back in the early '90s where I worked, not a mechanic but a cubicle farm, the guys got the corporate message pretty strongly and there were consistently no scanty posters or calendars. But the women kept their beefcake calandars up a while longer. Evidently, they didn’t think the message from HR applied to them until a clarifying memo went out.
Your experience may well go back further than the 2005-issued OSHA certification card in my wallet; but around that time, the cheesecake photos did come down, for the reasons you state.
…soon to be replaced with political stickers for increasingly right-wing ideology
Yeah, even if they’re only visible from the work area, there are still people in there. And even if there aren’t any women in the shop, well, the existence of those posters (and the attitudes that underly them) are part of the reason for that.