It's become kind of the proverbial image of the pre-liberated workplace - the lecherous boss and his sexy secretary. The movie 9 to 5 mocked the stereotype, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy did an excellent job at poking fun at 70's workplace sexism. Of course, we're being a bit naive if we think this sort of thing still doesn't go on, but I don't think it's anything close to what it was.I've shown the next ad before on Retrospace. The "LSD" acronym on the picket sign rocks my world - a reference to acid in a copy machine ad? That's pretty amazing.
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Reservations and billing all done on a typewriter... I can barely remember the days before computers were everywhere. Remember that nasty carbon paper, the annoying typewriter ribbon, when a single typo could mean you'd have to retype the whole damn page, and having to look how to spell stuff in the dictionary? Seems so archaic now - as if I'm describing life in the Depression era.
Click here to view full sizeOne of my favorite pictures, I've used this next one a couple times here at Retrospace. I don't know what it is about it I like - it just oozes "retroness" from every pixel.
.... and last but not least, a couple screen shots of Linda Thorson in The Avengers (1968). In this episode she's posing as a secretary who gets frozen in place by trance-inducing criminals disguised as Classy Glass Cleaning Co. Ltd. workers in order to swipe Cypher HQ secrets from the Ministry Of Top-Secret Codes.... nevermind, it's complicated.
