General Employment Conditions

A Sackable Offence (1950s)

Sheila worked as a comptometer operator in Manchester. At the age of fifteen, in 1952, I took a job in an office of a Textile Company in Manchester. Part of my responsibilities included invoice production. I was sent for a one week course at a Comptometer School on Deansgate. A Comptometer, for those who have […]

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A very different working world (1962-2000)

Anne describes the working life of a grammar-school educated woman with secretarial training working for an optician in Bury and then for a well-known Thetford building, undertakers and commercial business. She took on all the responsible work, including arranging funerals, working out wages and paying them before the days of calculators or computers, and there […]

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Education from Experience or from College? (1970s)

Cyril expresses his opinion on whether experience or education is the key to success in the steel works. I am 84 years of age – after serving in the Navy I was employed by a large Steelworks as a Labourer. In days gone by a Labourer could work his way up the ladder of success […]

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Working Hours (1950s)

VWP submitted this comment to WISEArchive in 2005. I was a Personnel Officer (Kayser Bondar & Yardleys) during the 1950s & a member of the Institute of Personnel Management. The above American conclusion was then accepted in that as a result of long hours in factories during the war, surveys had concluded that the rate […]

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