As @najaB says, there’s supposed to be compartmentalisation of data where multiple accounts are held. For a lot of purposes (including some voluntary uses) there’s a really fine line between enforcing standards effectively and inviting non-compliance.
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Things in living memory which seem very anachronistic now
- Thread starter GordonT
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RailUK Forums
Same. For example, we can no longer sync our work email to personal devices, nor connect the OneDrive client. I'm pretty sure that there are limitations on what you can and can't do with Teams on a personal device (e.g. file sharing) but I deliberately don't sign into it on my personal mobile so that I can't be messaged when I'm not on the company laptop.
2020 was the year a lot of companies perhaps changed their tune on remote access virtually overnight...I can't think why 
We probably went from 200 VPN accounts to about 2000 within weeks!
Some users prefer to just shove the apps on their personal phone, others refuse to do anything without being provided a work phone - from our IT support point of view it was actually a lot easier to provide the work phones as we could deploy all the required work apps and manage the devices via mobile device management tools rather than trying to guide and troubleshoot users on their million different smartphone models (January was always a support headache with the 'I just got a new phone for Christmas and now my VPN token needs setting back up!'
)
If the company has a decent enough relationship with a mobile network the phones cost virtually next to nothing anyway to provide but our company at least did have to restrict mobile data quite significantly as certain users were somehow managing to get through 100GB+ a month!
We probably went from 200 VPN accounts to about 2000 within weeks!
Some users prefer to just shove the apps on their personal phone, others refuse to do anything without being provided a work phone - from our IT support point of view it was actually a lot easier to provide the work phones as we could deploy all the required work apps and manage the devices via mobile device management tools rather than trying to guide and troubleshoot users on their million different smartphone models (January was always a support headache with the 'I just got a new phone for Christmas and now my VPN token needs setting back up!'
)If the company has a decent enough relationship with a mobile network the phones cost virtually next to nothing anyway to provide but our company at least did have to restrict mobile data quite significantly as certain users were somehow managing to get through 100GB+ a month!
TravelDream
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My current job pays part of our salary as an 'allowance'. It even appears on our payslip separately from the base salary though it's taxed and NId just like it. One of the things this allowance is supposedly for is a mobile phone.
Can't imagine it's the only company to do that.
This reminds me of the one time I worked for a government quango and for over a month essentially did very little.
My on-boarding was disrupted as the department head had left the previous month and the new one wouldn't be installed, it turned out, for over six months after I arrived. Another person was temporarily nominally appointed, but she had her own department to run at the same time.
I received a phone and a laptop within about three days of starting. Not too bad I supposed.
An account so I could actually log in to said computer arrived at the end of week one. Hurrah!
Access to anything else took over a month to get as the helpdesk was anything but helpful. The were missing an approval from my direct line manager - a position that was unfilled.... It was shocking how senior it had to go to get the approvals.
My own access card to the building took 10 weeks. Prior to that, I'd been using a blank one they kept because issuance took so long. Not sure how secure that was.
The result? I spent most of the first month not doing much.
It wasn't a bad job, but change was glacial and spending one pence required approvals from multiple people in different offices.
Working in the private sector, as I do now, I really do miss government work in some ways (low stress/ low pressure/ low expectations) despite how frustrating and bewildering it felt at times.
As an aside, it also made me realise how difficult onboarding is when so many of your colleagues work from home some/ most of the time. I was there about a year before leaving and there were people in my team I never met in person.
One thing I've found about GDPR is some places are super hot on it and some places just aren't.
Same. We were forced to leave our previous office almost three years ago (the games company downstairs made an offer on our space that the building management couldn't refuse) and there are at least two or three people who I'm certain have never stepped foot in our current location. We move into our long-term space in a month or so, it'll be interesting to see if they'll have an assigned desk there or not.
TravelDream
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I feel like an old fuddy duddy type for saying it, and it didn't help our team was leaderless so to speak, but it was and is a huge issue.
At the end of the day, I was quite lucky. Months in, the expectations on me were essentially zero. The whole organisation seemed to float along without energy or purpose.
I wouldn't want any business I ran to operate like that.
That is to reduce the comparny’s pension obligations, and also (if applicable) any salary related bonus.
Brightonboy
Member
Hand written or typed sheets of meeting minutes that were then pasted onto the pages of a hardback A4 book.
Pretty sure those were mentioned at least twice already in the thread.
Banda's?
Those that smelled
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D6130
Established Member
Yep....there was nothing quite like getting high on the smell of Banda copying fluid in the secondary school classrooms!
Merle Haggard
Established Member
My bold
May I point out that this represents a reverse of the thread title? - 'Things which are normal now but would have been unusual in distant living memory'.
My childhood in terms of awareness of my surroundings started in the early 1950s. There were then still around many veterans of the First World War as well as, obviously, of the Second. Industrial work was composed more of heavy industrial, also intrinsically dangerous.
As a result, many people had to cope with life as amputees and with other life-changing injuries, but wheel-chair use by adults was very uncommon. For instance, those who had lost legs got around independently with the use of crutches. Men who had been 'gassed' in first war walked around but slowly. When I first worked on BR one of my colleagues - in a clerical job admittedly - got around pretty quickly with one artificial leg.
Perhaps a good railway-related example was a fireman on an 8F-hauled coal train on the Pye Bridge - Kirkby line when the loco was overpowered on the gradient. The loco picked up speed and derailed, then overturned. As result he was trapped and lost a leg. Fitted up with an artificial one he returned to work as a fireman at Kirkby - though BR later gave him a desk job.
Basket suppers (or "basket meals") were popular in the 1980s and 1990s because they offered a casual, affordable, and "cheap and cheerful" dining experience. They were served in plastic or wicker baskets lined with paper. Not seen anything similar in recent times but I expect there will be some venues around which continue to have similar on offer?
gg1
Established Member
I had one at a pub in Llandudno last summer, first time I'd seen one on a menu for years.
125Spotter
Member
My local pub recently started doing food again now that it seems to have settled on a stable owner following several years of struggle, and it called them "basket meals" on the menu. (Pretty cheap too, or at least as far as money can be pushed in 2026.) I thought it was a good throwback.
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Chicken and chips served in a basket was once a very common South Wales pub offer in the 1970's , always known a "chicken in the rough" - a bit of a treat to enjoy with your pints of beer !
How about this: a randomer in the street asking you for the time.
This happened to me just now, in Newton le Willows, but it occurred to me that this is now very rare, as almost everyone has a phone (or other device to tell the time with!)
Ok maybe not anachronistic as such, but certainly something that was very normal but now is extremely uncommon.
This happened to me just now, in Newton le Willows, but it occurred to me that this is now very rare, as almost everyone has a phone (or other device to tell the time with!)
Ok maybe not anachronistic as such, but certainly something that was very normal but now is extremely uncommon.
swt_passenger
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Yes. Years ago both the RAC and the AA put up their own signs where they thought improvements were necessary. I guess once they’re in place they still aren’t the local council’s responsibility?
There was of course a brief fad of soup served in a hollowed out loaf which was neither neither satisfactory as accompaniment nor container.
That's theme of the thread, being pedantic the thread title should probably be "Once common things that would be anachronistic now".
As to people asking the time, these days when it does happen my first thought is always that they're going either try and pickpocket me or try to get me to go to their church!
Quite traditional in many parts of Europe - which explains why it was less satisfactory here, with much of Europe never moving to the Chorleywood process for breadmaking, and so the bread structure is much more robust.
Have eaten it that way in Prague and Iceland, recently.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
You get it in Poland too.
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Uncommon enough that there's a reasonable chance they could be doing so to get you to get your phone out so they can see if it's worth trying to nick it!
My last encounter was in Romania, where the bread did a very good job as a container, but distinctly below par as accompaniment (and that’s not a comment on “continental bread”!)
Not sure if it's already been mentioned upthread, but having to enter your pin number into a chip & pin machine every time you paid by card (which you still occasionally have to do).
Before that, signing a sales voucher when paying by card instead of using a chip & pin machine (and in some places, using a manually operated sliding credit card sales voucher machine).
Being able to pay by cheque in shops and restaurants (and having to wait for the person in front of you in the queue at the checkout to write a cheque, and in some places, having to write your cheque guarantee card number on the back of your cheque).
Only being able to use the cash machine (a.k.a. the "hole in the wall" or automated telling machine (ATM)) at your own bank, which IIRC was the case until the Link network was established in about 1990.
And in the days before ATMs became widespread, only being able to withdraw cash from your account over the counter when your bank was open. At least some places would accept cheques if you ran out of cash in those days, though.
Before that, signing a sales voucher when paying by card instead of using a chip & pin machine (and in some places, using a manually operated sliding credit card sales voucher machine).
Being able to pay by cheque in shops and restaurants (and having to wait for the person in front of you in the queue at the checkout to write a cheque, and in some places, having to write your cheque guarantee card number on the back of your cheque).
Only being able to use the cash machine (a.k.a. the "hole in the wall" or automated telling machine (ATM)) at your own bank, which IIRC was the case until the Link network was established in about 1990.
And in the days before ATMs became widespread, only being able to withdraw cash from your account over the counter when your bank was open. At least some places would accept cheques if you ran out of cash in those days, though.