Posted on 07/13/2018 7:45:15 PM PDT by vannrox
Today, Americans have taken so much for granted. We look at our life and think that it is as it has always been. Indeed, it is assumed that the way things are today have always been that way. Yet, the simple and plain truth is that America has changed. Over the last few decades there has been tremendous changes at all levels of American society and culture.
For instance, it is a recent phenomenon that restaurants can charge $8 for a cup of coffee. Or, that we have to take a urine sample to get employed. Casual day on Friday, or having a “co-pay” on your medical insurance was unheard of just a few decades ago.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on our shared past. Let’s look at what it was like to work for a company in the 1960’s. Just because things have changed does not mean that they have changed for the better.
"All federal workers will be ordered to spend 75 percent of their time on government work"
-President Donald Trump's (R) "cruel" executive order demanding that Federal Workers must actually work in order to get paid. If they do not work the bare minimum, they can be fired.
Today
Mr. Waturi: But can he do the job. I know he can get the job but can he DO the job? I'm NOT arguing that with you. I'm not arguing that with YOU. I'm not ARGUING that with you. I'm not ARGUING that with you Harry! Harry... Harry... Yeah Harry... but can he DO the job. I know he can GET the job but can he do the job?
(Excerpt) Read more at metallicman.com ...
The Inflation from the 1960’s and 70’s to the 1980’s, 90’s and now, has changed everything.
It’s changed our workforce and the jobs folks are willing to do.
As someone who has been gainfully employed since 1967, I can tell you there was more to it than being on time and urinating into a cup.
Great article! btw- “Joe Versus the Volcano” is one of the best pictures ever.
I thought the first few seasons of “Mad Men” captured the early 60s better than any show or movie ever did.
I had a job as a gas station attendant in the mid 70’s for a time. Not only did we pump the gas but we squeegeed the windshields and also checked the oil levels by request. If oil was needed we had the metal quarts stacked on the island and we would puncture the spout into the cans and pour. Don’t find that anymore.
I started work for real late in the seventies. My kids are stunned when we talk about how much people smoked, drank, and yes...had sex at work. We used to have Friday keg parties.
Things have changed just a wee bit.
Thank you!
*PING* to an EXCELLENT article courtesy of vannrox.
Slide rules; telex messages; paper airplane tickets; zero security at airports; people smoking on airplanes; Traveler’s Checks; Visa not accepted in many places; typing pools; hand-written weekly technical reports from the field; photo documentation on film; inter office envelopes; two or three weeks vacation where you never called in and didn’t worry about work once; new company car every two years; you never got a useless robot answering your phone call; you were never told Press 1 for Spanish or Press 2 for English; you could walk in west coast towns and cities and not think you were in Bombay or Peking.
To list just a few memories of my first work years in the early 70s. Of course some things never change — beautiful women everywhere you look. But what has changed is they no longer look back. ;>(
It's not so much inflation that has caused Americans to give a pass on jobs they formerly were happy to do.
It's the fact that, even adjusting for inflation, those jobs don't pay nearly as well as they once did.
Why? Illegal aliens in the workforce have driven down the cost of labor because they're simply willing to do the same job for less than a legal American citizen CAN do them.
Windy,
American tradesman since 1979.
I retired last December, and looked to make a few bucks during tax season. I attached a comprehensive cover letter to my resume, detailing the varied tax work I had done over the past 30 years. I got two responses, both said I was not a good fit for their firm.
SMDH.
I loved the "benefit" of a "positive office culture", which probably means "we suck less than the average office."
Times have indeed changed. I have to admit, it made me feel old to reflect on it. I was going to write an overly long post, but...
No.
There is an essence of life that just seems barren when it comes to that now. I haven’t seen people congregate after work for decades now. People just cut it off and go home. Sure. Some of it is good. But it seems...dull with respect to work, and it isn’t just that I have gotten older. I see this in young people...they just leave, and that is that.
It seems that people are so incredibly uptight.
I can’t explain it, but somehow it feels related to this nanny-state aspect of society that thinks everyone has to be wrapped in bubble wrap by the state lest they hurt themselves or others. Someone might say something inappropriate or bad. Or act badly. Or get drunk. Or, God forbid, light a cigarette.
It's just the way things are today, men are being excluded from the work force.
Right. People have seemed to completely divorce their work life from their personal life, and while I think there is a positive side of it, it seems completely sterile and unnatural.
It kind of reminds me of the way the Internet has pulled people apart from having personal relationships with each other.
I can’t put my finger on it. But I don’t like it. It kind of reminds me in a way of Orwell’s “1984” where people left work and immediately went back to their flat. To watch their Telescreen.
The city hired us Jr High kids to staff all positions and got busted for violating Child Labor Laws (working at night).
So the city fired us With Cause.
Mad Men was highly entertaining and a very good perspective of the '60s that I never knew from my grandparents.
In private law firms here things were much more strict in the Sixties and Seventies than now. First, law firms were on a 6 day week, but got Sundays off. You had to wear a full suit Monday through Friday. Saturday was a casual day, which meant that instead of a suit you could wear a blazer or sports jacket with a tie and tailored slacks. You had to be at your desk working by 7:30 a.m. every morning. One of the senior partners would go from office to office making sure that the junior attorneys were all in, and you would be disciplined if you were late.
That was a little before my time, but as a new attorney I got disciplined for bringing in a typewriter and typing my notes and memo rough drafts, because that was “unprofessional” for an attorney. We were expected to dictate everything, either to a secretary or into a dictating machine.
A lot of manual labor. I worked in a factory in the early 70’s nothing was automated. Guys hand stacked heavy cases on pallets for 8 hours. Same for box cars - all loaded with two wheel hand trucks. It was real work. Now everything is automated from the production line to the loading dock.
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