My first job out of college was a whole engineering department of kids working their first job out of college. There was one guy not far off the stapler guy in “office space” that got a load of bullying. Can’t say I am proud of my part in that.
One guy used to think it was the height of funny to grab the other guy’s asses. The second and last time he did that to me, I grabbed him, pinned his arms, and kissed him full on the lips.
Chair races in the computer room, Friday afternoon happy hours, smoking at your desk, cocaine in the restrooms, pot smoking on the roof after lunch . . . Plenty of fun. All done, as someone alluded to, in stuffy business suits, nylon stockings and silk blouses (for the women; ties for the guys). This was a video game company. Nowadays it’s jeans and t-shirts and sneakers pretty much every day unless you have some big ass meeting with VPs or stakeholders, in which case it’s still not as formal as back in the day. I haven’t worn pantyhose to work in over 10 years.
One of the big things for me is not what I did back then that I don’t do now, but what people said to me then that I don’t hear these days:
“Yes, you’re ready for promotion, but Gateway Plaza is not a woman’s branch. We need a male manager there.” (this was a discussion with my management team about my career path)
“Stand up and walk for me. Now turn around. You need to wear a padded bra” (this was at an interview for a part time job at a clothing store in a mall).
The question that arises when reading this nice thread is what the hell did happen in just 20-30 years ?
Lawsuits, I’m sure. Most likely sexual harassment suits in the mid-late 1980s, and probably some poor SOB got mangled by a practical joke gone awry, and poof… no more sex talk or practical jokes anymore.
I’m a little too young to remember anything that’s changed significantly over the time I’ve been in the workforce- smoking was always forbidden and sexual harassment paranoia was at its highest when I started.
Although it won’t necessarily get you fired, the concept of working an 8 hour day seems to have gone by the wayside in the past 13 years since I started working. The stress level of most employees seems to have gone up- I just don’t recall anyone at my first couple of jobs (5 years) being nearly so goal-oriented or stressed about things as at my last couple of jobs (last 5, with grad school in between).
About five years ago, I and a female coworker were waiting in an ‘office’ of an industrial facility – not a real office but the grimy place where guys with dirty fingernails spend a few minutes a day doing their paperwork. As part of our conversation I idly commented to her on how thirty years ago the walls would have been covered with pin-ups and how we’ve made progress over the years. Then the site employee showed up and got out the paperwork we needed to see, by opening a desk drawer and grabbing the binder off of the pile of men’s magazines it was sitting on.
So I guess there was progress in thirty years – things moved from the walls to the drawers.
Here in academia, the booze still slows pretty liberally. Fridays at 4 is happy hour and our department has a dedicated beer fridge and wine cooler. It was only ever abused by one person, who was fired for being a lush. At least once every two weeks or so, there is occasion to get the beer and wine out for something. As long as it is after 3pm, no one cares.
I was working at a Navy HQ office when the Tailhook scandal hit. Tailhook scandal - Wikipedia
It was pretty much an overnight, complete, change of culture. We went from a place where a sentence that didn’t contain the “f” word was probably not important enough to listen, to zero cursing across the board, no second chances. There was sensitivity training, and people were absolutely shocked to learn that it wasn’t OK to grab the behind of a secretary, or purposefully glance down the front of a blouse on tiptoes.
That was the beginning of the change in IME and it swept across all local office environments pretty darn quick.
OK, now that I’ve seen it I totally want this patch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TailhookPatch2.jpg
I’m surprised so many of you seem to have “Man, those were the good old days” attitudes about this stuff and not “I’m glad all that nonsense finally came to an end.” I don’t drink or smoke, so those things would really make me unhappy, and sexual jokes and pinups and practical jokes would be intolerable for me. It makes me think of Rush Limbaugh’s joke about “We’re in bad shape when you can’t look at two huge knockers and notice them.” I wouldn’t want to work with people like that! Remember when Anita Hill testified against Clarence Thomas and the members of the committee were just completely clueless about what constituted inappropriate behavior towards women?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m glad these changes have come about. I’m just sorry that laws had to be passed to get the culture to change. What, you couldn’t figure it out for yourselves?
Hey babe, why so uptight?
Right, the Thomas hearings. Id’ forgoteen that, another really strong driver in the culture change.
That’s so eloquent, I might just have to steal it from you.
About 20 years ago, I’d bought a “Girls of Washington, DC” calendar, which featured 12 finalists for the crown, all wearing bathing suits of various designs (no actual thongs, and some relatively conservative 1-piece suits). Among them was a waitress at a local restaurant/bar who was in my football pools. I had her autograph her picture. I then hung the calendar in my cubicle, not really hidden, but only visible if you came around one corner to visit me.
At the same time, a female co-worker/friend had a beefcake calendar posted on her wall. (The men were actually more unclothed than the women in my calendar.) I didn’t take offense at hers, and neither she at mine.
But then some busybody who used to come in at 4:30AM and snoop through everyone’s desks (:eek::eek::eek:) saw my calendar and lodged a complaint. I was called in that day (after the calendar had been up for 6 months) to the vice-president’s office and told about the complaint (not the who, but it was easy to tell from the language in the note). I shrugged and said OK, but only if female employees removed similar beefcake, specifically my friend’s. (I felt crummy “ratting” on a friend, but I wasn’t about to be double-standarded. I later took her to lunch to apologize.)
It was the start of the PC age in the office. About the same time, cigarettes were banned (thank goodness for that, actually, because my boss’s butts once started a fire in my office when the janitor emptied my waste basket and re-exposed a smouldering butt to O[suB]2[/suB], dumped it on the floor, and created a melted-nylon carpeting mess that sat in my office until I moved to a new building.)
You’ve already won. Don’t begrudge them some idle reminiscences.
Not really the same thing, but years ago, I worked for a company that had a summer employee picnic.
It was always a nice affair, with good food and stuff for the kids.
What always amazed me-they served beer to the adults!
I cannot imagine any firm doing this today-somebody leaves, gets into a car accident-someone is injured-and their lawyer finds out…and a massive lawsuit ensues.
Although the stereotype of Americans is we’re all sue-happy nutjobs, people can actually be decent.
I’ve bolded the part that should have told you this is not unusual behavior 
I think what you fail to grasp was the reasonable act of “sussing out” a person as opposed to presuming they’re an uptight prick. Sure, some of these episodes from the past pissed some people off, or made them uncomfortable. But that was not the majority reaction, and we (the perpetrators) were smart enough to leave such people alone if our jokes were not appreciated or bombed. Things like that made work more than just a “chore”; you spend so much time there, you could at least “live a little”.
Take asking someone out on a date. Why should your place of work be different from a restaurant, a bar, a library. Assuming you’re on a break and not loafing and you’re not the person’s supervisor, why should that be considered a no-no?
If the person is interested that’s great. If they’re not you move on. Now just asking once would be pounced on. It’s really sad. Given that climate, the wonderful woman (now my spouse) wouldn’t have been allowed to ask me out.
The company I work for still does this on a regular basis. Pretty much every one of our company events include beer, wine, and even liquor, complete with bartender who doesn’t really know what they’re doing.
My company occassionally has after work parties to celebrate events like big contract deliveries, etc, and serves beer. We also sometimes have happy hours paid for by the boss/project manager. But after work, not during lunch.
