It's a flipping worry

I have one.
I remember at 12y using it in Domestic Science. I made cheesy mashed potatoes and drew a fork across the top of them. Very artistically it was garnished with a piece of fresh parsley. Passed to me by the teacher. Looked right posh.

I operated one of those switchboards *AreWeThereYet?, I loved it too.

I worked somewhere with a computer room which was full of vast machines. The 'elite' who worked in there had to don hairnets, covers for their shoes and plastic overalls.

I used to work in a hotel in London as a receptionist, back in my youth, using a dolls-eye switchboard i.e one of those you see on black and white films where the receptionist has a load of 'holes', one for each telephone, and a load of cords with connectors on the end for each incoming call. A little 'dolls eye' indicator told you which lines were in use. I loved using it. No one I know has ever seen one apart from TV.

When I started work as a computer operator (1980-ish) the fastest computer we had (all mainframes then, no PCs) had 8MB of memory and was as big as my smallest bedroom is now. It was state of the art at the time. I remember trying to explain my job to my DM, who had never seen a computer and didn't understand what they did, and the closest I could get was an old episode of something like the Champions where a girl was putting a magnetic tape reel on a tape drive ?

It was no easy task you were given CanadianGran . ?

TillyTrotter, I used one of those Telex machines as well, but it was in the 80's. When I had a job interview they had asked me if I knew how to use one, but in my previous office we had a tele-fax, where you fed a paper through a machine, then dialed the number and the 'fax' was sent. Imagine how large my eyes were when I was asked to send a series of production figures on the punch-tape telex machine!

I'm still using Portmeirion lidded casserole dishes which were wedding presents in 1977. I shouldn't say this and tempt fate, but very rarely break anything. Never sure why because I'm incredibly clumsy.

I'm still using Pyrex dishes and lids which were wedding presents in 1968.... only 2 of them left, though.

Grammaretto, I had these in your picture as a wedding present from MiL.

I am still using kitchen equipment that qualifies as 'antique'!

I remember my employer buying the company's first electronic calculator in about 1966. It was the size of a large type writer was only capable of the four basic mathematically functions. It cost £300 (£6,000 in 2022 prices). For an extra £100 (£2,000) we could have a square root key!

Less than 10 years later you could walk into Smiths and buy a handheld calculator with basic functions and many more mathematical functions for under £10 (£140)

I’m a little teapot

I'm mid century vintage!

My first and only office job aged 15 was as a Saturday girl in the invoice department of Peter Jones in Sloane Square. I addressed envelopes in my best handwriting. There were some others in the office on typewriters but I never saw a calculator. That was 1963.

It always amuses me when they buy old tat on Bargain Hunt which is ' retro and cool'. Rusty angle poise lamps go for a fortune as do bashed up old filing cabinets.

Posters, we are not antiques, we are modern collectables.

I had to laugh when a colleague referred to Call the Midwife as a period drama. Made me feel positively ancient!

I worked hugh accounting machines when I started work in London....one was a 'National' and the other was a Burroughs which I preferred.....used to do the accounts and balance them each month......I remember the small table top Olivetti machines.
my sister worked on a comptometer machine

There were 2 Comptometer operators in my first General Office job kitty . I would watch their fingers pressing all those buttons so quickly, and wonder how the heck they did it!

I used a Telex machine which printed messages onto punch tape (series of holes), attached it to a ‘conveyor’, dialled a destination number, then pressed a button to feed the tape through the machine - and a message would type onto paper in another country.
That was a bit of magic too, I thought.

We had 17 Pyrex casseroles for wedding presents in 1965. None left now as they gradually broke or were passed on. We really needed towels and sheets as we hadn't any!

At the bank where I worked, we were gobsmacked when a time-and-motion chap came to check us out, and he used this little object to do his additions on. Didn’t need to use an adding machine.

It was a pocket calculator.

I used an adding machine similar but much smaller. We had to go on a training course.

I am still using Pyrex casseroles that we were given as wedding presents in 1972. Also a Philips hand mixer that I bought in Singapore in 1969.

kittylester

when the Antiques Road Show features a piece of office equipment that I used when I started work.

Exactly how old am I?

I don't think you're an antique yet kittylester as I'm sure you're not 100 years old.

However, you could be vintage and definitely priceless!
?

Still using the dish though the lid was dropped on the flagstoned kitchen floor of the last house but two many years ago. Think ours was a wedding gift in 1962!

The Royal Museum of Scotland has on display some 1960s pyrex dishes donated by someone I know!

You've used things for years and you have finally finished with them - imagine saying "Darling, let's donate these to the museum"

The dish was similar to this