What decade did you start work in? And how was it for you?

[DaleCooper]

The drawing office print machine used ammonia to develop the prints. If you had a blocked nose a sniff of ammonia would clear it in no time. Of course this was in the days before CAD, we actually used pencil and paper and a pantograph draughting machine. One of the first things I had to do was practise writing block capitals and numbers until the chief draughtsman considered I was good enough to do a drawing.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

!979 , BR Management Trainee , salary £3,700 - "all stations standard class pass" (work only) + priv tickets for personal use.

When I went to university in 1976 , there were around 1 million unemployed ("it will be fine when you graduate they said") , - there were around 3 million in 1979 and worse to come.

Whereas the job market had been quite incredible some years earlier - in many areas - lectureships with contracts quite easy to get , major companies vying for graduate entrants with lavish offers and wining and dining at interview stage.

1979 was bleak , but not impossible. Most people got a start somewhere. Helped that we were pretty much debt free , had not paid tuition fees - and getting accomodation in other places was quite straightforward and affordable compared to today's price gouging. A reasonable council flat in London in generally OK areas in what became Zone 1 cold be obtained. (London had spare housing capacity in those days)

Workplace was pretty fluid as for 15 months we were shifted around quite a lot .Technology light - I recall typing up progress reports and work assignments on my old university portable typewriter.

 

[underbank]

1983 left school Friday and started work as a trainee accountant on the following Monday. Pathetically small wage of just £32 per week (the nic limit so neither me nor employer had to pay nic) - less than £1 per hour!

Employer paid my college fees (evening class 1 evening per week), but I had to buy my own text books and use my annual holiday allowance to take time off for revision and exams.

The senior partner begrudged that. In "his days", Articled Clerks had to pay the employer to take them on and didn't get any wages at all, nor any support for studying - it was all the responsibility of the parents or the clerk themselves to get a second job! He never missed the chance of telling me how lucky I was to be getting a wage!

After 3 years, I had enough experience and exams passed to move to a bigger firm with a slightly bigger wage, but who did actually fully pay for courses, books, exam fees and even gave you paid time off for the exams (though you still had to use your holiday allowance for revision time off and I needed to do day release to go to college, so had a day's wage deducted every week for that!).

So, basically, pretty harsh back in the 80s. From what I see and hear, current/modern trainee accountants get a lot more support, better wages, etc., so things have definitely improved.

 

[jmh59]

I started on my 18th birthday in 1977, retired last year after over 40 years, same company, different roles. I went in with 4 'O' levels and they sent me to college on 'day release', one day a week for 2 years. I got a City and Guilds in computer programming from that. I went from technical, through research, into management, then admin, into web when it was new, into legal, management again, and ended up as I went in, a minion. But they did pay for my LL.M. and Ph.D., both recent, so no complaints!

 

[DarloRich]

I started proper work in 1997. I had had shop and pub/kitchen jobs before that.

The office was very much paper based, had no computers and everything was dictated and typed on those big electronic typewriters. It was an extremely professional environment, very correct with staff called by their first names and managers/directors called Mr ( or Mrs when, shockingly, we got one) and proper standards of dress. There was no suggestion of attending work without a tie!

 

[d9009alycidon]

Started work in 1975 as a Technical Apprentice with British Steel (Tubes Division) at Clydesdale Works, had always wanted to join the railway but failed with what seemed the most important question - does your father work for the railway? That said British Steel were good for me as after getting my ONC and HNC they sponsored me to go to Strathclyde University. Back then if you could show that you worked full time for three years or more you automatically got a full grant, BSC then topped that up with a £500 sponsorship fee and guaranteed full time employment over the summer so I was a relatively weat=lthy student. It went a bit sour after graduation as tbh they didn't know what to do with me and I ended up a shift inspection foreman. It was obvious that the mills were on their last legs so I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire at a concrete company that reorganised and paid me off after 9 months! Since then I have worked in quality roles in a tyre factory (made redundant), a defence company, a medical device company (made redundant again), a jobbing manufacturing company, a major fork lift manufacturer, a mobile generator manufacturer and currently with a major player in the life sciences field. The last three have been as a supplier quality engineer, something which has enabled me to travel extensively, clocking up a good few thousand miles on UK and European railways.

i can echo some of the points raised previously about "the way things were" - BSC had three canteens, Dirty side (mill operators and fitters)/Clean side (Staff) and Management, managers also had their own toilets and always wore a suit to work, indeed there were one or two that would still indulge in a buttonhole flower. Collars and ties were required by all staff not working machinery and you never used first names when addressing a senior member of staff. The unions were very strong, strikes were frequent and the shop stewards had an arrogance that would be jaw dropping in todays society, it really was no wonder that they closed down

 

[njamescouk]

1974 (I think) Laundry Machine Operator in a hospital. Saw some s**t there I can tell you. Didn't get paid either, then had the mysteries of working a week in hand explained to me. Lots of older guys struggling on crap wages while I lived the life of riley...

But 70's good for getting work though, much harder now. Accommodation outrageous these days as well compared to then.

 

[furnessvale]

The drawing office print machine used ammonia to develop the prints. If you had a blocked nose a sniff of ammonia would clear it in no time. Of course this was in the days before CAD, we actually used pencil and paper and a pantograph draughting machine. One of the first things I had to do was practise writing block capitals and numbers until the chief draughtsman considered I was good enough to do a drawing.

Same for me in 1964. Eyes streaming, I would stick my head out of the print room window. Problem was, the window was right over the turntable at Blackburn railway station with a non stop stream of steam engines turning!

 

[Killingworth]

1965, unemployment was high in the North-East but there were desperate shortages of labour elsewhere, particularly in London and the south east.

University was only for an elite, even from grammar schools so A levels were considered good. Many of my classmates left at 16 with O Levels and would have gone to University today. One in my year left at 15 and became a British Railways manager. I completed professional exams by night classes 3 nights a week. (A few years later day release came in.)

I applied to Lloyds Bank and had my first interview with the branch manager in the grand old boardroom in their Collingwood Street branch, near the Central Station. It must have been about April when I was summoned to London and offices just off Lombard Street to see Mr C C Armstong, a tall slim gentleman who was a senior Staff Manager. I was reprimanded for not addressing him as Sir. I was made to understand my application was not a foregone conclusion. Then he suggested I started in 3 weeks time! Hang on says I, I've got 3 A Levels to take soon. They were clearly so short of staff they wanted anyone asap! I told him September was my available time and so it came to pass. (I digress to add that I'd never been south of York before and the train trip, probably Deltic hauled, was exciting enough in itself. The City of London was still strewn with undeveloped bomb sites, many rebuilt, demolished and rebuilt again since!)

So I duly reported to my first branch where I found the manager was a preWW2 friend of my father! He'd been captured at Dunkirk and ended the war as a Major RA. My father had been RAF and spent 3 years peacefully in India (more safely than my mother being bombed in Newcastle). Apparently such service distinctions mattered after 1945.

I was told to make the office tea, but that failed and the young ladies said it would be best if they did that. I was given the coke boiler to stoke - stupid boy, it went out and the Manager (Captain Mainwaring - reputedly used to do pull ups on the beams in his garage) considered only he could get it going. Jack C the Chief Clerk (Sgt Wilson) was more laid back. Ink wells needed filling in the public space each morning. Clean blotting paper at each desk. The manager's desk had to have totally clean paper daily. Not a blot anywhere was to be seen so turning the large double sheet inside out wasn't allowed for him. When it snowed guess who's job it was to clear the long path to the pavement, and then to clear the full length of the pavements on both roads of our corner site? Confidential waste? What was that? All waste paper went into tea chests and put out after two weeks - but first I had to sift through it all to make sure nothing valuable was going out. Memories of my first year or two of work. My supervisor was a girl I'd been in the same class with at junior school but who'd been working there for 2 years. Didn't she enjoy telling me what to do.

Fast forwarding to 1969 and we still had to go through an operator to get any phone calls. Kendal 64 we were. By the mid-1970's copying facilities were still not common place. Somebody had a triumph and got hold of an old wet copier. What a performance that was, but better than nothing. Having to put the sheets on a radiator to dry after copying took ages! Memories, memories. Of the River Hull washing against the front door step and seeping in to fill the bottom of the the lift shaft causing a big flash when all the electrics touched into it.

But there's more to do today, enough of this nostalgia.

 

[Cowley]

1965, unemployment was high in the North-East but there were desperate shortages of labour elsewhere, particularly in London and the south east.

University was only for an elite, even from grammar schools so A levels were considered good. Many of my classmates left at 16 with O Levels and would have gone to University today. One in my year left at 15 and became a British Railways manager. I completed professional exams by night classes 3 nights a week. (A few years later day release came in.)

I applied to Lloyds Bank and had my first interview with the branch manager in the grand old boardroom in their Collingwood Street branch, near the Central Station. It must have been about April when I was summoned to London and offices just off Lombard Street to see Mr C C Armstong, a tall slim gentleman who was a senior Staff Manager. I was reprimanded for not addressing him as Sir. I was made to understand my application was not a foregone conclusion. Then he suggested I started in 3 weeks time! Hang on says I, I've got 3 A Levels to take soon. They were clearly so short of staff they wanted anyone asap! I told him September was my available time and so it came to pass. (I digress to add that I'd never been south of York before and the train trip, probably Deltic hauled, was exciting enough in itself. The City of London was still strewn with undeveloped bomb sites, many rebuilt, demolished and rebuilt again since!)

So I duly reported to my first branch where I found the manager was a preWW2 friend of my father! He'd been captured at Dunkirk and ended the war as a Major RA. My father had been RAF and spent 3 years peacefully in India (more safely than my mother being bombed in Newcastle). Apparently such service distinctions mattered after 1945.

I was told to make the office tea, but that failed and the young ladies said it would be best if they did that. I was given the coke boiler to stoke - stupid boy, it went out and the Manager (Captain Mainwaring - reputedly used to do pull ups on the beams in his garage) considered only he could get it going. Jack C the Chief Clerk (Sgt Wilson) was more laid back. Ink wells needed filling in the public space each morning. Clean blotting paper at each desk. The manager's desk had to have totally clean paper daily. Not a blot anywhere was to be seen so turning the large double sheet inside out wasn't allowed for him. When it snowed guess who's job it was to clear the long path to the pavement, and then to clear the full length of the pavements on both roads of our corner site? Confidential waste? What was that? All waste paper went into tea chests and put out after two weeks - but first I had to sift through it all to make sure nothing valuable was going out. Memories of my first year or two of work. My supervisor was a girl I'd been in the same class with at junior school but who'd been working there for 2 years. Didn't she enjoy telling me what to do.

Fast forwarding to 1969 and we still had to go through an operator to get any phone calls. Kendal 64 we were. By the mid-1970's copying facilities were still not common place. Somebody had a triumph and got hold of an old wet copier. What a performance that was, but better than nothing. Having to put the sheets on a radiator to dry after copying took ages! Memories, memories. Of the River Hull washing against the front door step and seeping in to fill the bottom of the the lift shaft causing a big flash when all the electrics touched into it.

But there's more to do today, enough of this nostalgia.

You may say enough of this nostalgia, but I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

First job was at uni collecting trolleys in Tesco's car park. Was actually a good laugh, especially when you got to bring the mobility scooters back in.

First job out of uni was 2004, night shift sorting mail at Royal Mail. All electronic, the machine would photo anything it couldn't read and we'd have to type in where to send it. Letters with stupid illegible copperplate handwriting usually got sent to Lerwick or Stornoway.

Sadly inflation has not been kind to me; I'm earning in 2019 as a senior debt adviser what I was in 2008 as a social services legal adviser for Shelter. God bless the charitable sector.

 

[superjohn]

I started full time work in 1994 shortly after dropping out of university. I ended up as a trainee bookbinder on the local industrial estate, £7000pa raising to £8200 after three months (petrol around 43p/litre at the time IIRC). What was originally a short term ‘something to do’ job became twenty two years in print which saw me working all over the UK and Western Europe.

2000-2010 were really good times in print but the trade has taken a coal mining style dive since then and is still in severe decline. Luckily I have been able to reinvent myself and now work in logistics for one of the big supermarkets. It’s not as lucrative as the glory days of print but, at forty four, I’m just grateful to have found a new direction.

 

[DaleCooper]

I started proper work in 1997. I had had shop and pub/kitchen jobs before that.

The office was very much paper based, had no computers and everything was dictated and typed on those big electronic typewriters. It was an extremely professional environment, very correct with staff called by their first names and managers/directors called Mr ( or Mrs when, shockingly, we got one) and proper standards of dress. There was no suggestion of attending work without a tie!

That sounds more like 1897, in my experience things in 1997 were nothing like that, we had internet, CAD, everyone on first name terms and wearing the same company polo shirt.

i can echo some of the points raised previously about "the way things were" - BSC had three canteens, Dirty side (mill operators and fitters)/Clean side (Staff) and Management, managers also had their own toilets and always wore a suit to work, indeed there were one or two that would still indulge in a buttonhole flower. Collars and ties were required by all staff not working machinery and you never used first names when addressing a senior member of staff. The unions were very strong, strikes were frequent and the shop stewards had an arrogance that would be jaw dropping in todays society, it really was no wonder that they closed down

I worked for a former British Steel Corporation company and much of my knowledge of dining rooms was from visiting other ex BSC companies, including Stanton as previously mentioned, it must have been part of BSC's culture.

 

[Mag_seven]

The company I started work for certainly did back then - it had table cloths, a bar and waitress service. (I wasn't entitled to use it I should add!)

i can echo some of the points raised previously about "the way things were" - BSC had three canteens, Dirty side (mill operators and fitters)/Clean side (Staff) and Management, managers also had their own toilets and always wore a suit to work

I worked for a former British Steel Corporation company and much of my knowledge of dining rooms was from visiting other ex BSC companies, including Stanton as previously mentioned, it must have been part of BSC's culture.

I could almost have worked for the same company.

 

[DaleCooper]

We also had a tea trolley come round morning and afternoon although I think it was coffee in the afternoon. There were cream buns and managers got a free cuppa so of course the highlight of my day was the appearance of Lil the tea lady.

 

[Cowley]

We also had a tea trolley come round morning and afternoon although I think it was coffee in the afternoon. There were cream buns and managers got a free cuppa so of course the highlight of my day was the appearance of Lil the tea lady.

That sounds great.
We had a tatty rest room with shiny seats, a battered teapot, newspapers all over the place and a thick fog of cigarette smoke when you walked in.
It was a great place to be though sitting there as a 16 year old listening to the old-hand mechanics trying to outdo each other with their stories...

There was always some practical joke going on somewhere, one of the favourite ones was to take one of Ron’s cigarettes out of the packet when he wasn’t looking, soak it in something flammable and then put it back in the next morning. Every time he lit one up we’d all lean forward in anticipation, until the inevitable happened and the one he’d selected burst into flames accompanied by a large amount of swearing and cheering...
I can’t remember what the story was about now but I remember laughing so hard during one break that I actually fell off my chair!

All of the older mechanics decided one lunchtime that they were going to catch my friend Lee - who was the other apprentice (he was a small Geordie lad, and strong as an ox too), stick a broomstick through the arms of his overalls and hoist him up on one of the ramps. They soon realised however that they’d bitten off more than they could chew because he went absolutely crazy and they couldn’t hold onto him.
I tried to remove the broom for him (which they’d managed to get up one of his sleeves) and was trying to get it out while he was still whirring around like a damaged helicopter just as our boss, and also his boss - the southwest regional manager (to whom he’d no doubt just said “We run a good tight ship down here, very professional. Come and meet the apprentices...”) walked around the corner and saw what he presumed was us having a fight.
Well we got shouted at for that one good and proper.
When we looked around to see where everybody else was there was nobody to be seen apart from ten blokes quietly eating their sandwiches in the rest room deeply engrossed in whatever newspaper articles they were all reading.
As our very angry looking boss walked back to his office he glanced at them through the window and I think it was John White who made a tutting action and slowly shook his head...

 

[DarloRich]

That sounds more like 1897, in my experience things in 1997 were nothing like that, we had internet, CAD, everyone on first name terms and wearing the same company polo shirt.

it wasn't out of the ordinary for the profession I was in. A polo shirt was then ( and would be now) absolutely unacceptable.

 

[Terry Tait]

1975 and it was great, biscuit factory near Stratford, no snowflakes, no smoking ban, pint at lunch, non pc banter, brilliant.

 

[Busaholic]

In the primary school holidays I used to 'help the milkman' for a couple of hours once or twice a week, and got a yoghurt (then a novelty) for my efforts. This was the 1950s, and the electric float (a la Benny Hill) had just replaced the horse and cart. First paid job = paper boy before school 1962.

 

[arbeia]

Started as an Apprentice Electrician on Railways 1966 on 45 Shillings a week. £30 Shillings to Mam for board, and 15 shillings for myself! Still managed 2 nights out on that. Bliss.

 

[Snow1964]

First ever job was a free weekly paper round 1977, got £1.50 which was plenty for a 13 year old. Use your own bike, sling heavy newspaper bag over shoulder, try not to crash was instruction (and that was 100% of the health and safety then).

Worked in supermarket stacking shelves during sixth form (1981-1983) started on about £1.15 per hour, was about £1.80 when I hit 18
looking back bosses got you to do precarious things, (hang step ladder out of canteen window, putting it on canopy, go down to that canopy and collect leaves and moss).
But canteen had proper hot cooked meals and desert (about 30p). Much better life with full hour lunch breaks and no prepacked additive laden food. A few times a year they did seasonal stock and get a 6 hour Sunday shift (double pay, so £3.60 per hour, or about £13 per hour in today’s money)

 

[507021]

I started work in 2012, my first job was in a seafood factory.

I really enjoyed it tbh, especially the second time I worked there.

 

[TheEdge]

When I went to university in 1976 , there were around 1 million unemployed ("it will be fine when you graduate they said") , - there were around 3 million in 1979 and worse to come.

Sounds very similar to what I was told in 2009!

2012 came and I decided the degree was pointless, get me on a train and by October 2012 I was a conductor for GA

 

[gtis]

Hi
I started work at 15 has a apprentice plater/welder for a local firm in Barnsley
For £3-12-7 I stayed there until they
Closedown in 1980s
I went to other tinpot firms Then got a start at another local firm in wombwell
Stayed there for 34 years until I retired
2 years ago
Neil

 

[furnessvale]

Hi
I started work at 15 has a apprentice plater/welder for a local firm in Barnsley
For £3-12-7 I stayed there until they
Closedown in 1980s
I went to other tinpot firms Then got a start at another local firm in wombwell
Stayed there for 34 years until I retired
2 years ago
Neil

Is that what plater/welders make then, tinpots?

I'll get my coat!

 

[talltim]

First ever job (during a summer holiday in the sixth form, about 1992) was typing up lighting related British Standards for a directory. Working in South Quay in Docklands. Job was boring but the commute into London was fun. The building later got blown up by the IRA.
I did various industrial temping jobs in the holidays holidays, Ones that stick out were one day as a dustman (knackering), working in Dixons' software warehouse (highlight was when the forklift driver dropped a pallet with 1000 copies of Worms from the top rack), the Ovaltine factory (free unlimited hot chocolate, which is why I hate the stuff now), cleaner in a factory making small brass turnings, (the automatic lathes were very clever but picking fag butts out of the oil baths was not fun), working in the Dexion factory with the thump of the huge presses going all day and the two Irishmen arguing the Protestant/Catholic divide every lunchtime, complete with biblical quotes to prove their points and a logistic warehouse where I learnt how to fold suits, climb on pallet racking, change the prices on Warner Brothers tat, and pick Nike trainers, all in a building that was colder inside than out in the winter.
After uni I was looking for jobs in design, but I didn't know the right people so ended up going for an interview at a company that provided staff of ICL. Turned up, was asked if I had used a computer, said yes and was told to go and pack a suitcase to go that afternoon to a training course in Warrington. Then went outside with all the staff as it was a solar eclipse and watched a van crash into a car.

 

[PeterC]

1965, unemployment was high in the North-East but there were desperate shortages of labour elsewhere, particularly in London and the south east.

University was only for an elite, even from grammar schools so A levels were considered good. Many of my classmates left at 16 with O Levels and would have gone to University today. One in my year left at 15 and became a British Railways manager. I completed professional exams by night classes 3 nights a week. (A few years later day release came in.)

I applied to Lloyds Bank and had my first interview with the branch manager in the grand old boardroom in their Collingwood Street branch, near the Central Station. It must have been about April when I was summoned to London and offices just off Lombard Street to see Mr C C Armstong, a tall slim gentleman who was a senior Staff Manager. I was reprimanded for not addressing him as Sir. I was made to understand my application was not a foregone conclusion. Then he suggested I started in 3 weeks time! Hang on says I, I've got 3 A Levels to take soon. They were clearly so short of staff they wanted anyone asap! I told him September was my available time and so it came to pass. (I digress to add that I'd never been south of York before and the train trip, probably Deltic hauled, was exciting enough in itself. The City of London was still strewn with undeveloped bomb sites, many rebuilt, demolished and rebuilt again since!)

So I duly reported to my first branch where I found the manager was a preWW2 friend of my father! He'd been captured at Dunkirk and ended the war as a Major RA. My father had been RAF and spent 3 years peacefully in India (more safely than my mother being bombed in Newcastle). Apparently such service distinctions mattered after 1945.

I was told to make the office tea, but that failed and the young ladies said it would be best if they did that. I was given the coke boiler to stoke - stupid boy, it went out and the Manager (Captain Mainwaring - reputedly used to do pull ups on the beams in his garage) considered only he could get it going. Jack C the Chief Clerk (Sgt Wilson) was more laid back. Ink wells needed filling in the public space each morning. Clean blotting paper at each desk. The manager's desk had to have totally clean paper daily. Not a blot anywhere was to be seen so turning the large double sheet inside out wasn't allowed for him. When it snowed guess who's job it was to clear the long path to the pavement, and then to clear the full length of the pavements on both roads of our corner site? Confidential waste? What was that? All waste paper went into tea chests and put out after two weeks - but first I had to sift through it all to make sure nothing valuable was going out. Memories of my first year or two of work. My supervisor was a girl I'd been in the same class with at junior school but who'd been working there for 2 years. Didn't she enjoy telling me what to do.

Fast forwarding to 1969 and we still had to go through an operator to get any phone calls. Kendal 64 we were. By the mid-1970's copying facilities were still not common place. Somebody had a triumph and got hold of an old wet copier. What a performance that was, but better than nothing. Having to put the sheets on a radiator to dry after copying took ages! Memories, memories. Of the River Hull washing against the front door step and seeping in to fill the bottom of the the lift shaft causing a big flash when all the electrics touched into it.

But there's more to do today, enough of this nostalgia.

I started with NatWest a few years later. The juniors in the machine room took it in turns to make the tea. I remember a few years later the only boy among the juniors obected to taking his turn. The older men who had been juniors in all male branches would have none of it, they had to do it so so should he. The younger ones, myself included, agreed with the decision but for more "feminist" reasons.

We used to have cheque books pre-printed with the branch details which had to be stamped with account details in magnetic ink. It was noisy and if you worked up a decent speed you were in danger of stamping your thumb. At least a customer could get a new book while s/he waited. Cheque cards were produced by an outside contractor and took forever.

Living in outer London I was posted to a local branch and later to the City but the company had a hostel in South London for younger staff drafted in from the Provinces. They were entitled to expenses for trips home and there was some disatisfaction when the new fangled railcards were handed out as most of them drove, got lifts or used the coach and previously claimed full rail fare.

 

[Essan]

I left school, with a handful of O Levels, and started work, in 1983 - the height of Thatcher's Recession. After at least 4 weeks of sending off job applications I had only had 5 interviews and 2 offers ...... I took the one at the big international insurance broker. If I hadn't left 12 years later, I'd probably be rather well off by now.

 

[Killingworth]

Living in outer London I was posted to a local branch and later to the City but the company had a hostel in South London for younger staff drafted in from the Provinces. They were entitled to expenses for trips home and there was some disatisfaction when the new fangled railcards were handed out as most of them drove, got lifts or used the coach and previously claimed full rail fare.

Ah yes, provincial volunteers. They were also recruited in the north explicitly to work in London. I think for tax reasons they had to work at least 2-4 weeks back home and were indeed housed in hostels in London. Many northern branches could recruit staff fairly easily with 5 O levels. Those recruited to work in London might have got in with CSEs in Maths and English only.

Until 1969 bank staff worked a 5 and a half day week. Saturday mornings weren't overtime but those in commercial and industrial centres might get every other Saturday off. In busy shopping centres it wasn't so good and in a suburban branch I served at with only 3 staff you were lucky to get a Saturday off at all! It wasn't fair. Staff in London in particular wouldn't work those hours so the banks gave up and closed on Saturdays - that was it! Unions claimed credit, of course, but it was market forces that did it!

Up in Jarrow it was so quiet on Tuesdays that staff were reputed to have got the whole day off instead of Saturdays!

 

[John Webb]

First 'job' in very early teens (around 1960) was repairing/servicing Triang locos for a local stockist, who was only expert at repairing cycles, his principle stock in trade - 2/6 (2 shillings and 6 pence) for each job I did.
After school came three years at college learning about Physics, followed in 1967 by two years in a major company's electrical components development laboratory which taught me much, much more about working with others. Starting pay of £950 and had to clock in and out until after a year it went up to just over £1000 and I no longer had to use the time clock!
Then nearly 30 years in a Government research station until it was privatised out of the Civil Service with some early retirement packages - I grabbed the money and ran!
When I left my first job I was presented with a high-quality slide-rule as a leaving present. Within about 4 years at the research station I was using electronic calculators, followed by personal computers, and by the time I left our experiments were being measured and results produced in real time so we knew what was happening as we did it, rather than a week or two later after the mainframe had done the number-crunching!