The Remarkable Hazards of 80s Office Life

While writing this year’s murder mystery event for the Hawkesbury Drama Group, I’ve been reminiscing about 1980s office life – the inspiration for my new play, Murder at the Office. (Tickets now on sale here.)

Back in the day, as an impressionable twenty-something fresh out of university, I assumed everything I encountered about office life to be normal practice, because I had nothing with which to compare it.

Looking back now, I realise a lot that went unremarked would cause an outcry in a 2026 business setting.

Smoking in the Office

The ubiquitous acceptance of smoking in the office, for a start. Non-smokers like me were powerless to prevent nicotine-addicted colleagues from puffing away all day. Open-plan offices were all the rage, so each day I’d go home smelling like an ashtray, and doubtless with secondhand smoke in my lungs.

Putting aside the undoubted damage inflicted by secondary smoking, how were paper-pushers allowed to keep burning cigarettes in ashtrays on their desks? Was no-one worried about the risk of fire?

Apparently not, because when one of my colleagues, Bob, a computer programmer, started a small fire on his desk “because I was bored”, management laughed it off.

Fire alarms must have been far less sensitive in those days, or else cigarette smoke, and certainly Bob’s fire, would have set them off. How many fires from other causes were missed until they’d taken irrevocable hold, risking lives as well as harm to the blazing business?

Smoking was not the only dangerous habit that health and safety rules ignored.

Once, in a fit of frustration, my line manager hurled across the room at her boss the first missile that came to hand, coincidentally an ashtray.

Now there’s an unusual hazard of smoking. Whether she received a reprimand I do not know, but she kept her job.

Lunchtime Drinking at the Office

Perhaps the habitual boozy lunches of the time immunized management against worrying about occupational hazards. Our bosses often spent lunchtime downing pints in the pub or drinking wine in restaurants – on expenses, of course.

Even junior staff didn’t worry about staying alcohol-free during the working day. If my friends who worked as bank tellers in Central London restricted themselves to “only a couple of pints” at lunchtime, it was primarily because of the long queues at the bar, rather than the government’s drinking guidelines, which were not introduced until 1987.

Oh, and because if their tills didn’t tally at the end of the day, they had to stay behind and keep checking until they did. I wonder how often they sneakily added money from their own pockets or snaffled the surplus to resolve the discrepancy.

Hearing Hazards in the Office

Other dangers lurked within the office. Desktop computers were just starting to catch on, and before the age of wifi and Bluetooth, every connection had to be hard-wired. The trailing wires to printers and hard-drives presented trip hazards, and early printers were so noisy that it’s a wonder we didn’t suffer permanent hearing loss, despite their sound-proofed hoods.

As to the telex machine, its machine-gun-fire noise earned it a separate little room. Despite the racket, I loved operating the telex, excited that when I fed in the punched-tape message I’d created, its message would print out as if by magic at its destination, even on the other side of the world.

So next time you’re railing against health and safety regulations in your workplace, think again: at least they’ve saved us from the office hazards of the 80s.

I’m just glad I survived the dangers of that decade long enough to be able to reminisce about them.

(This article first appeared in the February 2026 edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News.)

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In Other News

As you may have spotted from the opening paragraph, I’ve finally settled on the title for my new murder mystery playscript that I’ve written for the Hawkesbury Drama Group. Having had A Capital Murder in mind, as the plot kicks off with the arrival of a venture capitalist at a software start-up company seeking further funding, I had a change of heart to a more “Ronseal – does what it says on the tin” idea: Murder at the Office.

Set in the 1980s, when newfangled mobile phones were the size of a housebrick and personal computers were just starting to seem like a good idea, it’s a jolly romp inspired by various office jobs I held during that heady period – including a home computer software company which had better remain nameless! However, if anyone remembers working in Worcester Park for such a company in the mid-80s, I’d love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’d love to know what you’re up to now.

Here’s the poster advertising the play, in case you’re within reach geographically and would like to book a ticket. We’re going to have fun!

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the launch next month of the novelisation of last year’s murder mystery play, The Importance of Being Murdered, published in all formats by Boldwood Books on 26th March.

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What I’m Reading

The Porcelain Cat by M & P Ganendran

What a find! Having enjoyed a contemporary mystery by M Ganendran (reviewed in last week’s post), I thought I’d give this one a go, written jointly with her husband, this time a historical detective story set in London in 1900, and with a couple of cameo appearances by Sherlock Holmes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this charming story about a young woman, Madeleine, keen to become a detective’s assistant, defying her mother’s wishes to settle down to a nice, safe job in a telephone exchange. Unable to persuade Holmes to take her on, she joins forces with Detective Amarnath, an Indian detective newly arrived in London to train the British force in the new art of fingerprinting.

Full of fascinating historical detail, with lively, well-drawn characters, this gentle, cosy mystery is warm, witty, and fun, and I am looking forward to reading more in the series as soon as Mr & Mrs Ganendran, very productive across a range of genres, find time to write them!