Why the holes in the envelope?
In the early days of my business, I circulated a few memos each week. They all sounded very serious, but most were just goofy. “Toilet paper must be hung over-the-top in order to meet OSHA Regulations” type stupidity. Yet people comp[lied!
So you could see it wasn’t empty, I assume.
ETA: Like this.
So you can tell by looking at the envelope whether there’s something inside or if it’s empty.
Oh, man. There was nothing like arriving at my desk in the morning and having several of those waiting for me in my inbox. Most of them simply contained a sheet of paper with a brief announcement and a list of names at the bottom. You initialed next to your name, put it back in the envelope, wrote the next guy’s name on the envelope and tossed it in your outbox. More time spent shuffling the envelope and the paper than in reading the memo.
Memos were an official form of communication. Simple hand written notes were also common, and often attached to other paperwork that there was a lot more of. I had In and Out boxes on my desk, there was incoming mail, memos, notes, official letters even more formal than memos, and lots of forms coming in and out for approval or perusal. Those forms would often have hand-written notes attached, like an invoice for approval with a note from accounting about the balance as an example. The invention of the Post-It note was a big thing because it made it so simple to add a note to something else. And we spent more time on the phone too.
Virtually none. General staff notices went on the bulletin board. Multiple copies wasted carbon paper. Office girls with black hands knew how to run a hand-crank mimeograph machine. Missed callbacks scribbled on trash-can envelopes and left on my typewriter (manual, non-electric Underwood). The time and place of the annual Christmas party in the pay envelope. Anything fairly serious, a secretary would come around and say “Pointy-haired guy would like to see you.” Phone call for you, yell “line 2” across the room.
Yes, a colleague who has been here at least 25 years recently retired and showed a slide show including an image of the routing form with names, where you would check off that you had read it, and take it to the next person. He was in IT and the comparison between then and now was dramatic – especially in the number of IT staff people!
Some areas still use those here. Back in the day, the month-end accounting reports would be stuffed for hundreds of departments and delivered in those. At year-end there were multiple closes and each day’s reports had to be stuffed and delivered.
I remember when I was around 21, I had a college temp job in an office. This was 1993. We didn’t have email or internet (or at least I didn’t). My manager would just come by every now and then to give me stuff to do. But it was very boring dealing with long stretches of no work and nothing besides Minesweeper to occupy my time.
We still have those around the office; sometimes we use them to route congratulations or going-away cards, and once in a while, I need to send something physical to another building and use them still.
Hand written notes put in your Box, or taped onto your desk if deemed urgent. Memos for official ‘everyone needs to know stuff only’. Manufacturing plant with offices. No beepers, pagers. radios or cell phones, just desk phones. If you were away from your desk and in the “plant” there was a primitive buzzer system through speakers. Two short bursts and a long meant “Dallas, find a phone and call the front desk”. Bonk…Bonk…BONNNNNKKKK.