We had it tough in the office back then.

[trof]

If you had to type something with two or three (PLEASE NO!) carbon copies you had to hit the typewriter keys so hard that the original had holes for periods.

Those round typewriter erasers with the little brush (for brushing off the erasure grit?) that usually made a hole in the paper and you had to start all over.

Then they came up with Wite Out, a white fluid you could paint over mistakes and type over it.
A page with Wite Out (BIC) looked worse than one with erasure holes in it.

You used a 3 hole punch to put pages in a 3 ring binder.
After a short while the holes would tear through.
Then they came up with those little gummy reinforcement rings you could v-e-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y lick and stick around the holes. If you were very conscientious you'd put the stickers on BOTH sides of the hole.
"Hell, that aught to hold it for-ever!"
And the glue would dry up after a few months and the stickers would come off and the holes would tear through anyway.

Mimeograph machhines.
I don't even want to go there.

What are your favorite memories of office work back in the day?

[guillaumeb]

1. Using punch cards to write programs.

And hoping that no mistakes were made, especially at the end of the punch card.

[Useless in FL]

15. Oh yes!

We wrote the program instructions and then sent them to be key-punched on stacks of punch cards. Of course I dropped the stack of cards before testing and then had to reassemble them in order of instruction. It was like a grand "pick em up sticks" game.

[Delmette2.0]

28. I use to be one of those keypunchers.

It got my foot in the door at a bank which lead to a better job. About 12 years later I took my sons to a computer museum. It started with an abacus and ended with one of those keypunch machines. I really felt old to see that.

[GP6971]

2. Back Spacing

on the Telex machine when you made a mistake.

[SCantiGOP]

3. Writing on clay tablets

But I did enjoy the mastodon burgers they would bring in for lunch.

[marked50]

19. Wins the day!

[sazemisery]

4. Back in the '70's

My mother owned an H & R Block and we had a Diazo copier that used an ammonia/water solution in the process of making copies. We had to wear a mask to operate it.

[badhair77]

5. Putting footnotes at the bottom of a research paper page.

If I didn’t leave enough space I’d have to type the darn thing all over again. Thank goodness for the future Works Cited page and the word processor.

[htuttle]

6. Doing double entry accounting by hand, with a pen

Bob Cratchet had nothing on us, though -- we had a fancy electric adding machine to help.



Note, this is the newer one we had. The older one was entirely mechanical and had a huge lever on the side like a taximeter.

[trof]

26. That journal page prought a flashback to Accounting 101.

yuck

[NurseJackie]

31. I used one with a "one armed bandit" style handle.

[DinahMoeHum]

7. Communicating to overseas clients by Telex. . .

. . .with actual tickertape.

[Lulu KC]

25. Happy memories of that n/t

[BigmanPigman]

8. I miss the smell of mimeographed papers.

[KT2000]

11. what was that stuff anyway

At school, I could smell it in the hallways if anyone was copying. I wonder how many people got loaded on that stuff at work and school.

[BigmanPigman]

14. I don't know what the solution/chemical was but when I became a teacher

in the 90s I checked out the copying situation and was disappointed that Xerox had replaced the mimeographs. The machine say in the workroom unused for years before it was eventually removed.

[mountain grammy]

17. I loved the smell of mimeograph in the morning!

[BigmanPigman]

18. .....

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

23. Yes! It smelled like ...

... pop quiz!

Wait, no, that's not right...

[50 Shades Of Blue]

9. My first "real" job was as a Fed. Govt. clerk-steno. 1974.

Not only did we have to make numerous carbon file copies of every letter and memo we typed - the letters and memos we typed weren't allowed to have any corrections in them. You could get to the bottom of a long letter you'd type perfectly and hit the wrong key in the last word - have to rip it out of the typewriter and start over.

My first government typewriter was an IBM Executive typewriter. I hated that thing with a red hot passion.

But if it weren't for all the clerical work that computers and automated voicemail and email and work from home have now replaced, I wouldn't have gotten promoted out of the secretarial field. I do have some fond memories of it. (Not so fond of having to take dictation! Does anybody still even teach Gregg shorthand?)

Thanks for the walk down memory lane!

[KT2000]

10. IBM Selectric

With the erase ribbon, I could type just as fast backwards as forward.

I overheard the Olivetti salesman tell the boss that "the girls just like the IBM Selectric so they could impress their friends." Boss ordered the Olivetti. They were so loud they have to develop a plastic cover to keep the noise down.

[AwakeAtLast]

21. Loved the Selectric!

I can still feel the keys....

[bobbieinok]

12. MA thesis, PhD dissertation on 2 carbons. Admin went thru each page sorting 1st,2nd copy by--

She picked out darker copies as number 1, lighter as number 2. Colors changed just before typist changed carbons.

Never really understood what was going on. Did typist move 2nd carbon up to 1st, so that only 1 carbon was thrown out and only 1 was added.

I just know the checking took a long time, and admin chose reader for extremely good eyes.
I believe school adopted new policy at end of 60s
There was a major break-through when the school decided to accept Xerox copies in place of carbons.

[Useless in FL]

13. Ohhhh... I remember those days. We prepared manual spreadsheet

and then copied them on Bruning machines.

[elleng]

16. Was in school for those oldies,

amazingly thankful by the time I got out of school, electric typewriters and computers became available!

DID use wite out!

[lillypaddle]

20. Using an adding machine (big, black, clunky) with a handle

I learned how to multiply with it by adding zeros. crank, crank.

Yeah, typing was a bitch, trof, especially if you needed copies. I remember all of that.

Worked in customer service at a local bank & every morning we had to file the checks, which were waiting for us stacked on top of the file cabinets. Seemed like there were tons of them. And there was a microfiche machine that someone had to run all the checks that had cleared through.

Eventually I was promoted to supervisor of the check printing department - yep, we made the metal plates with people's names and then printed up the checks right there in the lobby while people waited. One time Annabelle got her fall caught in the rollers and man, it was a big fucking mess, but couldn't help laughing. And believe it or not, in between check runs, we'd go in this little closet and take a few hits off a joint. What on earth was I thinking???? Luckily, never got caught. Well, that's what they get for making me supervisor.

Um, those were the days all right! LOL

[philly_bob]

22. Bright yellow punch tape, the slight oily feel, the "chads" kept in a metal box.

The tapes rolled up in figure-eight pattern for storage. My muscle memory still recalls that figure-eight roll-up pattern, which I haven't used for 50 years -- and I never found another use for that skill.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

24. Ashtrays on desks. A beer and burger for lunch.

Suits. neckties, dry cleaning.

Polished shoes.

Coding forms, to send to the keypunch operators. Using jumper wires to program the card sorters, duplicating punches, etc.

Open windows on hot days, before widespread air conditioning.

Sending documents to other departments via pneumatic tubes: THUMP! You've got mail!

[nitpicker]

27. And the overhead trolleys

Shuffling files between departments.

And people visiting, convinced they could get a better assignment if they visited in person instead of trying to get through on the phone.

Let's not forget the "portable" computers of the mid-80s, only 25 pounds with one floppy to input the operating system and another to load in data.

And before then, seven-column paper. And pushing it onto the prongs.

Edit: and batch tape processing, so people would show up without any proof they had completed training.

And the input to make those tapes, where one failure meant the whole batch needed to be redone...

[Ohiogal]

29. I've been enjoying reading about everyone 's memories! And I can relate to most.

I remember those awful old typewriters and typing carbons in triplicate.

And changing the ribbon, you’d get ink all over your hands, or worse, on your good clothes.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

30. A while back I read an entire book about the development of photocopying.

Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine by David Owen. Sadly, it seems to be out of print. It is one of the most interesting books I've ever read, so if you can lay your hands on a copy, read it.

The relevant point is that when the first models of photocopy machines were placed in business offices on a trial basis, when the trial was over they practically had to pry the secretaries off of them to get machines back out of the offices. The technology completely transformed the office.

I still can't get over the fact that I can own my own personal photocopy machine that sits on my little computer desk and cost me about fifty dollars.

[bearfan454]

32. They laughed at me at work one time a few years back

I had to display some charts in a meeting and I asked if we had an overhead projector and some clear foils to print the color charts on so I could put them up on the screen. I was shown powerpoint and went from there.