Well, if you worked there.
Every workplace revolution starts with someone saying “that will never work” while puffing on their third cigarette of the hour.
The decade that brought us disco balls and bell-bottoms also delivered some of the most controversial changes in office history.
Your boss probably fought against half of these ideas before they became normal.
1. Open-Plan Offices
The wide-open workspace seemed like a crazy idea to many workers.
Companies started tearing down walls and putting desks wherever they fit.
The concept came from Germany and was called office landscaping. Workers complained they could not concentrate with all the noise and distractions. Many felt exposed without private offices.
Why It’s On This List: By the 1970s, workers in Europe actually rejected open-plan offices and demanded the right to a door they could shut and a wall they could beat upon.
2. Cubicles
These fabric-covered partitions sparked major debates about worker dignity.
By 1974, cubicles accounted for 20 percent of new office furniture spending.
Half of all new office furniture went into cubicled spaces by 1980. Workers hated feeling trapped in little boxes. Many raided supply closets for cardboard to extend their walls. Some pushed filing cabinets into openings to create a fourth wall.
Why It’s On This List: From day one, employees fought back against cubicles by blocking up the openings, showing they valued privacy over the supposed free flow of ideas.
3. Women Wearing Pants to Work
Female employees faced serious consequences for choosing trousers over skirts.
Many companies had written dress codes explicitly banning women from wearing pants.
Some women got sent home for showing up in pantsuits. Others faced informal pressure and social shaming. Management believed pants were not feminine or professional enough. The U.S. Senate did not allow pantsuits on the floor until 1993.
Why It’s On This List: This rigid standard reflected broader attitudes about workplace hierarchy and traditional gender roles that dominated office culture.
4. Smoking Everywhere
Cigarettes filled every corner of the office without question.
Managers smoked during job interviews.
Secretaries smoked while typing reports. Entire departments disappeared into clouds of smoke throughout the workday. Nobody thought twice about lighting up at their desk. The idea of banning smoking seemed ridiculous to most people.
Why It’s On This List: California did not become the first state to ban indoor smoking in offices until 1995, showing how normal this practice seemed for decades.
5. No Personal Phone Calls
Using the office phone for personal matters could get you fired.
Companies viewed personal calls as stealing company time and resources.
Telephones were expensive to operate back then.
Employees developed sneaky ways to make quick calls when supervisors were not watching. Making personal calls showed a lack of seriousness about your job. Workers had no other way to handle family emergencies during the day.
Why It’s On This List: The telephone was seen as a valuable business tool, and mixing personal matters with professional responsibilities was considered unprofessional.
6. Three-Martini Lunches
Business executives drank heavily during work hours and wrote it off as expenses.
Advertising executives and lawyers made this practice famous in the 1960s and 1970s.
People believed alcohol made them more creative during business meetings.
A rich businessman could deduct the entire lunch from his taxes. President Gerald Ford defended it as the epitome of American efficiency. Critics called it unfair that wealthy people got tax breaks for drinking.
Why It’s On This List: The practice began declining in the 1970s as people recognized health risks and stricter drunk driving laws took effect.
7. Pregnant Women Losing Their Jobs
Employers could legally fire women for being pregnant until 1978.
Companies also refused to hire women who were expecting.
There was no national maternity leave protection.
Many women lost their careers after having babies. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act finally passed in 1978 to stop this practice. Before that, pregnant workers had almost no legal protection.
Why It’s On This List: The idea that women deserved job protection during pregnancy was highly controversial and opposed by many employers throughout the decade.
8. Unpaid Maternity Leave
The fight for basic maternity leave sparked one of the most divisive workplace debates ever.
In 1979, a test case led to 52 weeks of unpaid maternity leave for 1.5 million women workers.
Conservative groups and many employers strongly opposed it.
Some worried that employer-paid leave would cause more discrimination against women. The compromise was unpaid leave with job protection. National paid leave did not arrive until 1993.
Why It’s On This List: Historians labeled this one of the most divisive test cases ever taken to arbitration, showing how radical the concept seemed at the time.
9. Ergonomic Office Chairs
Adjustable chairs designed for comfort seemed like an unnecessary luxury.
The Vertebra chair launched in 1972 with automatic adjustments.
In 1976, the Herman Miller Ergon chair featured padded arms and adjustable features.
Traditional offices used basic wooden or metal chairs. Spending money on worker comfort seemed wasteful to many managers. But here’s the deal: research into sitting for long periods drove the innovation.
Why It’s On This List: The idea of adapting the workplace to people’s needs instead of the other way around was a revolutionary concept in the 1970s.
10. Word Processors Replacing Typewriters
Electronic word processors threatened to replace trusted typewriters that had worked fine for decades.
The IBM Selectric typewriter dominated offices through the 1970s.
By 1978, IBM’s Model 75 could store 15,500 characters or about 10 pages of copy.
Secretaries worried about learning new technology. The correcting Selectric from 1973 could lift errors off the page with special tape. Many people saw no reason to change from reliable typewriters.
Why It’s On This List: Despite almost 90 years of typewriter improvements, switching to electronic memory and word processing seemed unnecessary and complicated to many office workers.
11. Flextime and Flexible Hours
The idea that workers could choose their own start times seemed dangerous to many bosses.
Flextime originated in Germany in 1967 and spread to America in the 1970s.
By 1979, somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 million workers used flexible schedules.
Managers worried employees would take advantage and not show up. Traditional bosses believed strict schedules kept people productive. Some companies required workers to keep weekly time records and stay during core hours.
Why It’s On This List: The practice challenged deep beliefs about workplace control and whether employees could be trusted to manage their own time responsibly.
12. Job Sharing Between Two People
Splitting one full-time position between two workers struck many as inefficient and complicated.
Job sharing emerged in the 1970s primarily to help women balance work and home life.
Two people would work part-time shifts to cover one role.
They typically shared a full-time salary and all the headaches. Critics worried about coordination problems and communication gaps. Companies feared it would create more work instead of less.
Why It’s On This List: The arrangement questioned whether one dedicated employee was always better than two part-timers working together on the same job.
13. Women in Management Positions
Female supervisors faced intense skepticism and outright discrimination from both employers and colleagues.
Companies routinely kept women trapped in low-paying jobs throughout the 1970s.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had to force companies like GE to abandon discriminatory policies.
Between 1972 and 1979, roughly 43 percent of women-led workplace protests were about equal pay. Male workers often refused to take orders from female bosses. Training programs excluded women on the assumption they would quit to have babies.
Why It’s On This List: The notion that women could effectively lead teams and make business decisions challenged fundamental workplace assumptions about gender and authority.
14. Computer Terminals on Desks
The sight of video display terminals in offices scared workers who feared losing their jobs.
In the 1970s, terminals began appearing connected to hidden mainframe computers.
Most employees had never touched a keyboard before.
Automation projects put people out of jobs they had worked for years. One supervisor came to her last day with alcohol on her breath after losing her job to computers. There was real pain beyond the fear.
Why It’s On This List: Workers correctly understood that computer automation would eliminate positions, leading to forced retirements and layoffs throughout the decade.
15. Photocopiers for Everyone
Xerox machines seemed wasteful when carbon paper had worked fine for decades.
The Xerox 4000 launched in 1970 as a compact convenience copier with automatic two-sided copying.
It was the first copier in the world that could print on both sides automatically.
Companies worried about paper waste and unauthorized copying. The machines jammed easily in the beginning. Sales representatives carried templates showing the exact size to convince skeptical buyers.
Why It’s On This List: Many questioned whether offices really needed expensive copying machines when secretaries could type multiple carbon copies of documents.
16. Office Coffee Machines
Automatic coffee dispensers seemed like an unnecessary luxury that encouraged workers to waste time.
Instant coffee was gaining popularity throughout the 1970s as offices bought supplies in bulk.
Freeze-dried coffee was considered the Rolls Royce of instant varieties.
Some traditionalists insisted on percolators and complained about instant coffee tasting terrible. Coffee whiteners and creamers started replacing milk in office kitchens. Critics saw coffee breaks as time theft rather than productivity boosters.
Why It’s On This List: Providing convenient refreshments for workers challenged the belief that employees should focus entirely on work without comfort or convenience.
17. Relaxed Dress Codes
Allowing employees to dress more casually threatened the entire concept of workplace professionalism.
The 1970s introduced leisure suits, bold patterns and vibrant colors that infiltrated offices.
Cultural changes from the late 1960s made people question whether suits were truly necessary.
Conservative managers believed formal clothing maintained proper business standards. Men wearing bold patterns and women in pantsuits seemed unprofessional to older executives. Companies feared relaxed dress would make work too casual.
Why It’s On This List: The shift from rigid dress codes reflected broader cultural desires to break free from traditional structures and express individuality.
18. Executive Fear of Keyboards
Senior managers refused to touch computer terminals because they viewed typing as secretarial work.
Most executives were intimidated by keyboards and not honest enough to admit their fear.
A Florida financial institution CEO demanded computer reports be retyped by secretaries so he would not see the printouts.
Executives complained that extracting information from computers took too much work. They preferred asking assistants questions rather than typing commands. But here’s the catch: computer companies insisted anyone could learn in just hours.
Why It’s On This List: The resistance revealed deep workplace hierarchies where managers believed certain tasks were beneath their status and position.
19. Questioning the Three-Piece Suit
Doubting whether formal business attire was truly necessary sparked major workplace debates.
The traditional power suit began losing ground as work culture shifted in the 1970s.
Younger workers embraced more comfortable and expressive clothing choices.
The cultural revolution questioned many established norms including formal dress requirements. Leisure suits and unconventional designs challenged the suit and tie uniform. Conservative industries clung to formal standards while creative fields experimented.
Why It’s On This List: Breaking from suit-and-tie tradition reflected changing attitudes about what professionalism actually meant beyond surface appearances.
20. Private Offices Disappearing
Taking away individual offices and replacing them with shared spaces felt like a loss of status.
Office landscaping from Germany promoted the radical idea that not everyone needed walls.
Workers viewed private offices as rewards for career advancement and symbols of achievement.
Losing your door meant losing prestige and privacy. Some employees felt management no longer valued their contributions. The transition sparked resentment among middle managers who had earned their offices through years of service.
Why It’s On This List: Physical workspace represented professional status and success, making the removal of private offices feel like a demotion regardless of actual job duties.