Remember your first....

[Cozzer]

...ticking off at work?!
Earlier tonight, I was watching some news report about how youngsters are suffering from mental health issues, and couldn't help wonder how they'd have coped with starting work in the 60's?
My personal ticking off concerned being lectured by the branch manager, about how I'd failed to replace the blotting paper in a certain fashion on his desk. Up to this point, he was quite pleasant, but that's when I overstepped the mark and got the biggest verbal broadside from him!
The top button on my waistcoat was fastened!
I stood there quivering as he lectured me - the top waistcoat fastening should have been left undone as "a mark of respect to WW2 RAF pilot fatalities..."
Have to admit that, on the very odd occasion I've worn one since, I've always left the top button undone...

 

[Bingy man]

Over forty years ago I was working with a bodger ( builder of sorts ) and he told me to mix up a bag of plaster huge bag about 5 ft x 2 feet in the old tin bath but to use unibond ( pva) .so in went a gallon of unibond with the water followed by this huge bag of bonding. He asked me when I’d done the mix how much unibond I’d put in — all of it I said . He turned a very deep violet and exploded into a crazy, angry out of control, madman . He proper ripped into me ranting about how expensive it was and I’d not be getting paid for a week. Every now and again I wonder what he’s doing now ..

 

[Yojevol]

So there I was, probably aged about 9, on my first paid job helping our milkman on his delivery round. He had one of those electric floats (can anybody beat that for a first ride in an EV?). They were slow and cold - no doors for easy entry/exit, but ideally suited to the job.
At one house he asked me to deliver 3 pints of milk and a small tub of single cream. Now for a lad of 9 with typical hands of a 9 year old, 3 pints was at the limit of my carrying capacity - one in each hand and one under my arm (this was in the days before the revolutionary introduction of the wire frame 6 bottle carrier, let alone the 8 bottle plastic carrier)
So what to do with the tub of cream? Here I should explain to my younger audience that this was in the mid '50's before the widespread use of plastics for food packaging, so the cream tub was made of waxed cardboard with a push-in cardboard lid. Come to think of it, the milk bottles also had card tops before the use of aluminium foil.
Anyway, I digress. Wanting to demonstrate efficient deployment of workforce resources, I wanted to deliver the 3 bottles of milk and a small tub of single cream in one go. With 2 hands fully utilised for milk carrying, the only receptacle available for the cream tub was my shorts pocket (not yet into long trousers). As it was a bit of a tight fit the cream tub needed a little persuasion to be pocketed. Unfortunately finger pressure on the tub lid caused Newton's First Law to demonstrate itself and instead of the tub progressing into my pocket, the lid progressed into the tub. Result, a pocket full of cream and an angry milkman boss.
Action & Reaction came into play for a second time when the boss docked the price of the cream from my wages (he had to pay for any losses to the dairy).
Lesson learnt and came in useful when, 5 years later, Mr I. Newton reappeared in O-level physics lessons.
Happy Days
Brian

 

[artie]

I remember my first proper 56 hr week labouring job at the tender age of fourteen. Working along side so called men, who berated and bantered whether the job was well done or not and were also not averse to some physical persuasion.
A well what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

 

[Distinterior]

I started my apprenticeship at 16 years old in Engineering back in 1978.
After the first 12 months in the company's training school alongside 9 others, we were all sent out to various departments within the factory.
I was given a place in what was known on the shop floor as "The Cage"....We mainly assembled Electrical/Mechanical modules as part of larger machines that the company made.
On this particular day, a job came into the department and was allocated to me. Upon checking all the various components, I realised that some small bolts/ machine screws were missing. I informed my Manager/ Charge Hand and was told by him to go to the company Stores and get the missing parts.
The guy in the stores said they didnt have the exact size that was called for, only longer ones!!
When I informed my Manager, he told me to cut them all down in length to the correct size and then file the burrs off.......There were 200 of them, about 4mm in diameter.......Sod that I thought! So, I knew another one of my apprentice mates had a proper set of threaded bolt cutters that were capable of cutting them all down clean, so I wandered down to his department and asked if I could borrow them.

As I'm walking back up the stairs with bolt cutters in hand and about to enter the door to The Cage, my Manager opens the door and asks where I've been.....I explained what I'd been to do and I got taken into his office where I got a right b o l l o k I n g.......He was practically foaming at the mouth with anger.
He said it was not my job to make that kind of decision......He had told me to cut them down using a vise, hacksaw and a file and I should not have taken it upon myself to do it any differently. I just thought I was using my initiative as it would do a better job and was a lot quicker, but he said that was not the point!

After 45 years, I can still see his face from that day.....He was not happy, and I ended up getting a written warning for it as well!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I started a construction job in 1973. One of my first weeks was 40 hours at flat rate, 8 hours at time and a half and 67 hours double time.
I slept in my work clothes.

 

[paulrbarnard]

...ticking off at work?!
Earlier tonight, I was watching some news report about how youngsters are suffering from mental health issues, and couldn't help wonder how they'd have coped with starting work in the 60's?
My personal ticking off concerned being lectured by the branch manager, about how I'd failed to replace the blotting paper in a certain fashion on his desk. Up to this point, he was quite pleasant, but that's when I overstepped the mark and got the biggest verbal broadside from him!
The top button on my waistcoat was fastened!
I stood there quivering as he lectured me - the top waistcoat fastening should have been left undone as "a mark of respect to WW2 RAF pilot fatalities..."
Have to admit that, on the very odd occasion I've worn one since, I've always left the top button undone...

Mine was as an apprentice and was preceded by the bellow of “Barnard you silly person cousin of an irate Abyssinian duck billed water monkey get over here”. It was followed by a one week suspension from college while my employer pleaded the case for my return. My crime was wiring live to earth, with low rate fuse wire, on a number of sockets in the electronics lab at the college so that there was a nice firework display when the lecturer did his usual flamboyant entrance to the lab and threw the main power switch on. Everyone else though it was hilarious.

I have to say all my run ins with authority at work have been a result of my own actions

 

[Spectric]

In many places of work there were also strict dress codes and you had to show respect to the ones who had been there longer than you. Time keeping was important and you lost money for getting in late, do it to often and you lost your job but these were the days when we had a huge manufacturing base and lots of industry and you got through the days because of the chat that had no bounds and no one got offended by the insults and going to work was accepted as the way to earn money and get on in life. Step forward to now, work is optional as you can class claiming benefits as a job, the workplace is a sterile enviroment why everyone is treading on eggshells incase they say the wrong thing and upset someone and many think an eight hour day starting at 7:00 Am is a joke and have a mental breakdown when you say you work for five days a week and then we wonder why the country is slowly moving round the u bend .

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My crime was wiring live to earth, with low rate fuse wire, on a number of sockets in the electronics lab at the college so that there was a nice firework display when the lecturer did his usual flamboyant entrance to the lab and threw the main power switch on. Everyone else though it was hilarious.

I remember several of classrooms having suspended lights - large hanging glass globes on steel ducting. Some clown in an upstairs room found a way of connecting the ducting to the cold water, resulting in the electrics shorting out and all the glass shades filling with water and hurtling to the floor.

 

[paulrbarnard]

In many places of work there were also strict dress codes

worst example of dress code I ever encountered was being called on my day off to go reboot some servers at the London International Finance and Equities trading center. The servers were down and Millions of pounds a second were not being traded. I arrived in casual clothes, it being my day off, and was refused entry without a tie. Someone actually ran into a local tie shop, bought one and made me put it on before I could go in to bring the system back up. That tie probably cost hundreds of millions of pounds. I still wearing to weddings today.

 

[Spectric]

and was refused entry without a tie

I worked in place where shirt and tie were required but I could remove the tie on safety grounds because of rotating machinery but the shirt had to be a shirt and smart appearance was always required when meeting visitors onsite or offsite.

 

[Bingy man]

Mine was as an apprentice and was preceded by the bellow of “Barnard you silly person cousin of an irate Abyssinian duck billed water monkey get over here”. It was followed by a one week suspension from college while my employer pleaded the case for my return. My crime was wiring live to earth, with low rate fuse wire, on a number of sockets in the electronics lab at the college so that there was a nice firework display when the lecturer did his usual flamboyant entrance to the lab and threw the main power switch on. Everyone else though it was hilarious.

I have to say all my run ins with authority at work have been a result of my own actions

Absolutely shocking ( sorry couldn’t resist)

 

[Jake]

I remember my first proper 56 hr week labouring job at the tender age of fourteen. Working along side so called men, who berated and bantered whether the job was well done or not and were also not averse to some physical persuasion.
A well what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Doubt that last bit is true, sad that that sort of abuse was thought normal then.

 

[TRITON]

Very early in my butchers apprenticeship, looking for something meaty to do - prior only given jobs like washing up, sweeping, and general cleaning, they allowed me to scrape for bones.

Bone scraping is when you remove any scraps left on them, which in turn goes into sausagemeat.

I took what was the back ribs the sirloin attaches to and started on them.

Got stopped with a WHAT THE F&^% ARE YOU DOING ???.
Nobody told me that behind the suet on the reverse side, was the entire fillet steak muscle, and i was happily hacking it into pieces

 

[Bingy man]

Very early in my butchers apprenticeship, looking for something meaty to do - prior only given jobs like washing up, sweeping, and general cleaning, they allowed me to scrape for bones.

Bone scraping is when you remove any scraps left on them, which in turn goes into sausagemeat.

I took what was the back ribs the sirloin attaches to and started on them.

Got stopped with a WHAT THE F&^% ARE YOU DOING ???.
Nobody told me that behind the suet on the reverse side, was the entire fillet steak muscle, and i was happily hacking it into pieces

That was his own fault for not teaching you the correct way, pity it was the most expensive cut .

 

[Keith Cocker]

In many places of work there were also strict dress codes and you had to show respect to the ones who had been there longer than you. Time keeping was important and you lost money for getting in late, do it to often and you lost your job but these were the days when we had a huge manufacturing base and lots of industry and you got through the days because of the chat that had no bounds and no one got offended by the insults and going to work was accepted as the way to earn money and get on in life. Step forward to now, work is optional as you can class claiming benefits as a job, the workplace is a sterile enviroment why everyone is treading on eggshells incase they say the wrong thing and upset someone and many think an eight hour day starting at 7:00 Am is a joke and have a mental breakdown when you say you work for five days a week and then we wonder why the country is slowly moving round the u bend .

Ah yes! The good old days. Dangerous working practices, racial discrimination, sexism, bullying. Didn’t do me any harm

 

[pe2dave]

1964. I left school and home for a 6 week training session, then joined my first ship (trawler) for Iceland. 3 weeks later I came ashore 'rich' with pound notes making a bulge in my top pocket. I worked it out, my 'rate' was about 6d per hour. 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, physical hard work (and a little bit dangerous).
After that, any job was a piece of cake. Working weekends - 8 hours a day, no problem. Never had a problem getting out of bed. On the trawlers, if the rum was dished out when you were asleep, you were woken with the 'dram' under your nose... drink it or lose it!
Still some very clear memories.

 

[Spectric]

The working enviroment should be work hard and then play hard, oh and did some of those secretaries like to play ! Just think of the first B/W photocopiers.

 

[paulrbarnard]

The working enviroment should be work hard and then play hard, oh and did some of those secretaries like to play ! Just think of the first B/W photocopiers.

I guess B is for Bum but what’s the W for?

 

[Spectric]

They developed like TV's starting of as Black & White !! Yes there were some of your type of B's taken on the copiers by the secretaries for a laugh and we had to guess which one belonged to who.