My day at the office

7 am - Woke to Mike Reid on Radio 1 on my radio/alarm clock.  Time to get up and get ready for work. 
I will put my new Spandau Ballet cassette in my Sony Walkman for the walk to work. 

8 am - Think I will wear my Herringbone wool skirt and my new Electric Blue shirt, buttoned up to the neck with a large brooch at the collar.  The Shoulder pads make me look like an American Footballer but are so now.  Since I finished the YTS scheme last year I have been able to afford more clothes.

9 am - Arrive at the office and straight to the post room to switch on the coffee perculator.  Takes half an hour for the water to heat and trickle through the fresh coffee in the filter.  Will need to make a fresh pot mid-morning as this pot will be like treacle.

9.15am - An hour to open all the letters that have arrived and sort for all the salemens and the boss.  Need to check the answering machine.  All those half messages where I cannot hear the phone number or the message tape ran out before the caller had finished.  Need to clear the tape ready for tonight's messages.

10.15am -  Need to send a Telex to Germany.  Cannot believe I can type on a keyboard and the message gets sent down a telephone line.  Techonology!  Whatever next?

Phone is ringing,  not it's not, it's the fax machine.  Leave it alone and a document will come through.  Nope, they must have lost the connection again!  A4 pages of typing sent down a telephone line. Amazing....when it works!

11.30 am - J, the salesman has left his file on his desk.  He needs it for his meeting in Birmingham.  Oh, well, I will have to wait and see if he realises and rings me from the service station. That is if he has 10p for the phone.  If I have not heard by lunchtime, I will phone the client he is visiting and talk to him then.

1.30 pm - Letters to type for the Salesmen.  I used to have an electronic typewriter and have to type everything with duplicating paper but at this new job I have a computer.  It is connected to a mainframe in the post room.  The mainframe takes up a lot of space and is about as big as 2 fridge freezers.  If it stops working the computer maint staff have to be called. We mustn't touch this state of the art machinery. 

Typing letters is much faster as I can edit my work on the computer screen, but this WORDPERFECT takes some getting used to.  All different commands for different actions.  I wouldn't mind but in my last job I was using WORDSTAR and the commands are completely different.  Work has to be saved every hour or so in case the system shuts down as we have thunderstorms about today. A typist lost several hours work last time we had a outage.

3pm - Photocopying to do.  We have a new copier that has a 15 page sorter and double sided feature.  It can reproduce black and white copies that are so clear.  For double sided I take the paper out after first page, reload into the copier for the 2nd side.  Great technology. Toner is messy when I have to change it.

Trip to the Post Office later with the franking machine to get more postage loaded.  That thing weighs a ton and the Post Office always has a queue.

Forgot to tell mum I have a driving lesson after work so will have to pop to the phone box on the corner and phone her to let her know I will be late home.  Thank goodness they had the telephone installed, at home,  last year.

Only my 2nd driving lesson this evening in a brand spanking new British Leyland Metro. 

Carol, aged 17, Office Junior, sometime in 1986  :)

1986 - Dad had just bought this Ford Sierra