Thoughts of fax machines, WordPerfect, WYSIWYG, and “You’ve got mail!” bring a smile to my face these days.
After more than forty years in the workplace, I’ve seen a lot of change. The entry-level jobs I held in the ‘80s have long ago slipped off my resume and LinkedIn profile. But when I take the time to recall what the workplace was like then, I marvel at what has changed and how I’ve managed to change along with it.
Workplace romances were common
In the ‘80s, around 25% of couples met at work. Dating workmates was completely acceptable and perhaps even expected, though it did have some guardrails around it (such as no direct-report relationships). Today, that number has fallen to around 12%. With sexual harassment coming to light and the #METOO movement, boundaries are tighter. Thank goodness.
Decades ago, drinking during work hours was also fairly common, which may have had a dysfunctional effect on relationships. (Though perhaps the “three-martini lunch” has just been replaced by beer on tap at WeWork.) My sense is also that work colleagues today socialize after-hours less now than forty years ago—though that is based solely on anecdotal evidence.
Without technology, the pace was slower
Corporate email wasn’t common until the late ‘80s, when Lotus Notes and MSMail (which became Outlook) launched. And of course there was no Slack. Which meant most business was done by mail, on the phone, or in person. Looking back, it seems hard to imagine.
Voicemail was just becoming a thing, which sped up communication because you didn’t have to keep dialing if you didn’t reach someone. So phone tag entered the picture. It also meant you could relay information without actually speaking. Of course, there were no cell phones. When I met my husband, he was the only person I knew with the cell phone’s predecessor, the “car phone”—a hulking handset physically wired to the car. While work in those days could be intense with long hours, the pace in most workplaces today is much faster.
It took a village
Technology has cut out many intermediaries. When I graduated from college, my father advised me never to learn to type. That’s because in his world, the important people dictated letters and memos to secretaries, who typed them up. Now, secretaries are not needed for this. In fact, kids learn “keyboarding” in elementary school and actually grow up to become important people.
When I began work at a magazine in the ‘80s, editors cut galleys of type into strips, pasted them to a board, and a typesetter laid out the page. A year later, I learned PageMaker software, so I could lay out magazine pages myself on a screen. No need for a typesetter. My brother, an architect, went through a similar transformation with the advent of AutoCAD around that time, rather than drafting by hand. The middleman had been cut.
Talk of work/life balance was rare
The term work-life balance is said to have first been coined in the ‘80s by the Women’s Liberation movement. But I don’t remember it surfacing in mainstream business culture until about twenty years later. Before that time, it wasn’t culturally acceptable to verbalize wanting to work less. The path to success was hard work—or so went the ingrained message. You could be sidelined for prioritizing family or personal life.
I sometimes think the call for work-life balance now, especially from younger generations, comes from watching their parents work long hours—and seeing the sacrifices that ethos brought. Today, particularly with larger numbers of women in the workforce, the feminist call for work-life balance is stronger than ever. Add the pandemic experience of remote work, and this is a growing sentiment.
Job search was slow and simple
In the early ‘80s, resumes would be professionally printed, leaving no room for adaptation. Then, with the advent of word processing, you could print up your resume yourself and tweak it to a particular opportunity. Revolutionary.
Every resume was sent with a cover letter—by mail, until email became more common. Thank-you notes for interviews were de rigueur. Of course, LinkedIn didn’t exist. There was no such thing as personal branding. No one talked about their network. Rather, you searched the job listings in the Sunday newspaper. Savvy job seekers also phoned friends to let them know they were looking for a job, in hopes of getting an “in” somewhere.
The interview process was much simpler then, too. Just imagine: Most interviews were with one person at a time. And there were no take-home projects!
Freelancers faked it
Because the technology wasn’t there yet to make freelancing a viable career move for most jobs and outsourcing wasn’t a term, individual players lacked credibility. If you freelanced or were a solo operator, you went to great trouble to make yourself look like a company or agency to provide a sense of legitimacy. That could be through your address or a PO box, setting up a company name with a logo, or doing whatever you could to not reveal you were actually working out of your basement.
I believe these workplace changes have ultimately been positive. Still, sometimes it’s gratifying to get perspective on how far we’ve come and enjoy a little nostalgia along the way.