morpeth

I did summer work for an American company in London back in the 70s, the tea lady coming by in the mornings and the afternoons drove the American managers crazy.

On the other hand, managing a company in Colombia having both American an Brit Expats, both were astonished at how low the productivity of office staff were as the number of public holidays, daily time taken for social chats, and office romances- for some office and field work we found it less expensive and more productive to fly in workers from
Peru or Mexico.

philat98

It is still the same in central Italy. Shops and businesses open at 8am and close at 1pm. They reopen at 4pm and clodse around 7pm. Most close on a Saturday afternoon. Only a few big shops and offices work through lunch and they are often short staffed.

JDWoowoo50

Gordon, in the late '70s I did a year's project work for one of the banks (I won't name it, only say it was the big bank named after the state in which it did the most business) to install the first computer system in the branches. That saga is worth a book - we had to face no end of resistance we had from the old managers who were elitist and a law unto themselves, also the branch accountants with their typical abacus. Our days could be challenging.

Most consultants couldn't deal with all the angst and left, but I stuck it out for 14 months. I had resigned as a staff writer with a daily newspaper after disagreeing with its editorial politics and the "slant" dictated at the whim of the Machiavellian owner, the onewho hadn't yet abandoned Australia to live overseas and was even then obsessively neurotic about influencing all state and federal politicians. I wasn't sure of my future career direction, or even if I had any career left at all. The bank project set me up financially, gave me a future direction (I later went into media marketing and prospered until the mid-'80s when the bottom fell out of media) and many useful contacts. So I stuck it out, and a good thing it was for me that I did so.

In those days the larger bank branches had tea ladies, matronly women of imposing dimensions and all "of a certain age", impeccably dressed and made up like drag queens in King's Cross, who mid morning and mid afternoon would wheel out carts with hot water urns, cups and saucers (yes, the good old days!), tea bags, instant coffee (International Roast, the very best at that time), and platters of the famed Aussie icon, Arnott's biscuits, to sustain if not exactly nourish the troops at our desks.
This was an established traditional service in Australia at that time, the bank paid the ladies' salaries and we all contributed a small amount every week for the little extras provided by these mother-figures. Some would bake lovely things at home which they sold to us for as little as 8 cents per item. On birthdays and for company celebrations they were happy to organize for cakes, Lamingtons (remember those?) and other home-baked goodies. One liked a tipple and on special occasions we often found generous dollops of Bodega sparkling wine in our tea cups. Wonderful times, they were.

In one branch a "stoush" (an Aussie term now lost in the mists of the past) was on for young and old (as many would have said then), between the young bank trainees and the older, more senior clerks who insisted they had a "traditional" first grab at the better Arnott's biscuits left over from managers' meetings. We grunts made do with plain biscuits while management (and their favored mates) had what was then called "lurks and perks", like better coffee, cream biscuits and every now and then, oh, heaven! chocolate cake, usually reserved for visiting mandarins.

Events boiled over one day after a long morning meeting of managers. When the execs finally went out to lunch word got round that a a few platters of leftover chocolate and cream biscuits was there for the taking. A mass stampede ensured to the meeting room, where of course the younger bods grabbed all the best items on offer. The oldies of course protested and there were incidents of pushing and shoving and harsh words spoken. The seniors all took offense at seeing the posher biscuits taken from them and finally, at the instigation of a particularly nasty auditor - an annoying wowser born in England, a Pommie much given to Lord Of The Manor attitudes, who we called "The Toe Cutter" - they staged a one hour "pens down, no phone calls taken" work strike in protest. A few of us noted the absence from all this by the organizer, the aforementioned Old Pom who was clever enough to not take part.

Word of all this soon got to top management, memos flew round the office, and the next day we were called in to a meeting (this during the uual morning tea break time, so punishment for us) and formally advised "a stop work" had never happened in living memory in any Australian bank (this was wrong, but never mind), and our morning and afternoon tea breaks were suspended for one month.

There was further uproar. The office union rep, a smarmy milk toast named Potts, was called in but as usual did nothing. One or two office Bolshies muttered about transfers to other branches (neither did), anonymous notes and obscene cartoons circulated. Old Toe Cutter found a bag of dog droppings on his desk with a note reading "for your morning tea" and took sick leave that day, another first for him. Two weeks or so later someone even wrote (anonymously) a letter to the city's leading daily newspaper about it, which instigated a Gestapo investigation by top level managers to find out who the culprit was. (In my defense I will say it wasn't me, I did find out confidence who its author was but also sworn to silence, which I prefer to maintain to this day.)

Otherwise, nobody died, nothing fell over. We felt sorry for the tea ladies and pleaded with our managers to rescind the ban. Promises of better behavior were made and duly noted and the next day, our two tea ladies were back at their posts. For my assistance to their good cause I got two hefty slugs of Bodega sparkling.

I reckon our productivity in the '70s and '80s was as good for its place and time as it is today, without the at times sadistic coercion and bullying associated with those horrible hellholes, the so-called Customer Service Centers (= call centers) which to me evoke scenes from Dante's Inferno.

Philat98 wrote - "It is still the same in central Italy. Shops and businesses open at 8am and close at 1pm. They reopen at 4pm and clodse around 7pm. Most close on a Saturday afternoon. Only a few big shops and offices work through lunch and they are often short staffed.

This may be antiquity talking in me, but I for one harken back to those fine old European work customs and traditions. There is far too much of the American call center mentality and the troops at their posts attitude in the Oz workplace. With the onset of climate change and higher temperatures, we should strive to be be more like the southern Europeans and adopt th midday siesta and extend shopping hours to later in the day. As I've already written, if this happens then nobody will die and nothing will fall over. Will this ever happen? No, not likely - but it's a pleasant thought.

Gordon Barlow

I have a fond memory of getting pulled over for speeding along the Thames Embankment, back in the day, in 1963. A youngish copper in the old Bobby-uniform strolled back to us, poked his head through the driver's window and enquired with the utmost deference, "Is this our car, sir?" I didn't quite know how to react to such a question! Fortunately, it was our car. At least, it belonged to the absent boyfriend of the girl I was with (he was off in Europe somewhere, silly man), and that was close enough. We were sent on our way with a gentle reminder of how naughty it was to exceed the posted speed-limit, and we drove off wetting ourselves with the effort to stifle the giggles.

The next time I got stopped for speeding was nearly twenty years later, here in Cayman. The young local copper was taken aback when I showed him the car's papers. "This says Linda Barlow!" He said sharply. "Yes, that’s my wife", I said. "It's her car". Stammering with embarrassment the poor fellow begged me to stay within the limit and hastened away. I wondered, what was that all about? "Oh, that must have been Timothy Whatsit", Linda said when I reported the incident. "A lovely boy; he always wanted to join the Police."

Till the day she died, she remained on hugging terms with just about all of her former students (Cayman Islands High School 1978-81). From time to time we benefited in one way or another from her reputation as a teacher who cared. At her Memorial Service in 2019, 14 of her old pupils turned up in a group; I really don't know if the policeman was among them.

Gordon Barlow

In the early '60s, we "colonials" in London weren't paid much, and anyway we were always saving our pennies for our travels the next summer. There was plenty of cheap accommodation in the Earl's Court area, and that became the HQ of us all, from whichever colony we called home. I was in a house with five others - three bedrooms, with three beds in one, two in another, and a single bed in the third. We rotated our sleeping quarters every week. There were no locks on the doors, but part of our arrangement was that the one-bed room was always to be available to whichever of us "got lucky" first, any evening. That worked well enough - as long as the tenant of the week didn't forget the caveat. My friend Bob did forget it once, while I happened to be enjoying squatters' rights. That was not as funny then as it seems today! I heard Bob thundering down the stairs to the room, so unexpectedly (it had never happened before) that I just lost my presence of mind, and panicked. I leapt out of wherever I was and launched my naked body at the door, hitting it at the exact same moment as he did from the other side. Hugely, hugely embarrassing! It took me a good four or five minutes to regain my equilibrium.

morpeth

Gordon, this morning I was on the plane sitting next to a retired lady (in her late 50s) who lives in Cayman, and was a teacher there .

Gordon Barlow

When we bought this house in 1997, Linda hired next door's Jamaican gardener to look after our garden as well. He said his name was Clemmings, but Linda - expecting a first-name - mis-heard it as "Clement". It was years before we discovered the error, and by then it was too late to change anything. So our grandchildren have always called him "Mr Clement", and so has Ross, although there's only a few years between them. None of our friends know it's not his real name.

Linda was a teacher at the High School for the first three years we were in Cayman - 1978-81 - and she was mostly called "Miss Linda". Not always: there's no hard and fast rule for expats. In her later years, our garbage men called her "Mummy". She ran cold drinks out to them every week, and "Mummy" was an affectionate title. I am "Daddy" these days, to young strangers: that's an age-respect thing, not affection! Before I got so old, the Island's female cashiers called me "beebee", which is the equivalent of "sweetheart" in some Caribbean islands. I'm usually "Mr Gordon", except to my Filipina cleaners, to whom I am "Sir Gordon"! One of our next-door neighbours is a real Sir, but his cleaner calls him "Mr John". I call her "Miss Marcie". I don't know why, except that she frightens me a bit...