(Author's Note: Written for The_Weekend_Write-In prompt 'work'. 500 words)

I retired after 32 years of working for Social Security (or it's equivalent) a few years ago now. There are so many stories I could tell, even without breaching clients' privacy.

When I started, in the Unemployment and Sickness benefit section, we used ledger cards to record each client's payments. The cards had little coloured tags clipped to the top to indicate which day of the fortnight they were due to be paid. (I remember even now that one of the Fridays was dark red and the other one dark blue!)

On the relevant day we would pull out all the cards with the appropriate colour and write in the amount they were due to be paid in the next box on the card. And if the tag had fallen off, the person didn't get paid until they rang up to complain! Just imagine explaining that one!

Then, after the supervisor had checked, the cards would be packed off to the data entry team and the payments issued by cheque overnight. The following day we would be presented with a computer printout on continuous stationary, several inches thick, with all the transaction records which showed which payments had gone through and which hadn't.

And then there was the day we had the printouts stored out of the way on a window ledge... and they cascaded gracefully down into the alley below. Needless to say, we had never run down two flights of stairs so fast.

This was in the days before payments could be made to bank accounts and addresses were quite important. In some cases, people were allowed to use Post Office boxes, such as the chap whose residential address - printed carefully on his card - was "on the beach near the merry-go-round." I kid you not.

Then there were the bomb hoaxes. I remember once being evacuated and standing around in the square, only to discover later the caller had actually intended to threaten the Pensions section which was in another building entirely. Luckily the threat was not real. Another time, someone left a bag unattended in our client waiting area and the bomb squad was called. They blew up the bag in the square just in case but once again, it wasn't a real bomb. Might be different these days...

By the time I left, so much had changed. Typing pools and Data Entry sections had disappeared (in the 1990s I think), as you were then expected to key all the information directly into the computer in front of you.

Now, new claimants are expected to go online and record their basic information themselves, and instead of being able to talk to the person actually processing your claim you get to talk to someone in a Call Centre, somewhere in Australia, that's if you are lucky enough to get through to a person after the "average" 20 minute wait (28 million calls got the busy signal last year).

Do I miss work? What do you think...?