If you’re not already a fan, I’m certain that you’ve heard chatter regarding ‘Mad Men‘, the highly acclaimed and Emmy award-winning series on AMC. As an HR professional, I will tell you that there is no better representation of cringe-worthy employment practices than those exemplified by the hallway conversations, office meetings, client presentations and seven martini lunches of the fictitious Sterling Cooper.
But perhaps Sterling Cooper is really not that fictitious after all. The early 1960s environment of Mad Men takes place a few years prior to the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964). So as you watch the overt racial, religious and sexual discrimination, you’ll understand that we’ve come a very long way in five decades.
One absolutely crazy example of the Sterling Cooper culture can be seen in a clip from this past Sunday’s episode. Can you imagine this scene at your office?? (SPOILER ALERT! Skip the video and the paragraph afterwards if you are just getting into the show.):
Secretaries on laps. Everyone three sheets to the wind. A John Deere lawnmower in the office (with blades attached). And best of all? The new British COO Guy MacKendrick getting his foot run over in the process, resulting in his prompt termination and an end to his promising career. It’s a modern HR practitioners “dream”! 
Fifty years seems like a long time, but for some of us, this show represents a superset of the workplace experiences of our parents and grandparents. Yes, some things have changed, but there are other negative examples that remain recognizable among the cubicles and conference rooms of today.
So my question is this… What will the next 50 years bring? Which of today’s policies and practices will be parodied in the 2060s? What will our children and grandchildren say when they proclaim, “I can’t believe they used to do _______ in the workplace!”? Look into your crystal ball, share your comments below, and let’s keep the conversation going.
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I have a friend who got his layoff notice today, after nearly 15 years with the company. I imagine that 50 years from now, his grandchildren won’t be able to imagine 15 years with one company.
One of the things I’ve gained from watching Mad Men is a new appreciation for what women were up against in those days. Women like Peggy are the ones who put up with an unbelievable amount of crap so that women like me could have successful careers, in pantsuits, without ever having perched on a single lap.
@Kerry – I agree on both fronts. This idea of a long standing paternalistic relationship with your employer is a thing of the past. It also shocks me to realize that it was not so long ago that the Peggy Olson’s of the world had to deal with such absurd treatment. Thanks for the comment Kerry!
I would like to say that in 50 years, HR professionals will look back and say, “Can you believe HR used to be in charge of picnics and holiday parties?”
Employee engagement is everyone’s responsibility. The fact that corporate leadership continues to have HR coordinate and execute these things is a reflection of how leadership views the value of our knowledge and time.
We are more than the cupcake department.
50 years from now they’ll be poking fun at how we used to sit in front of our computers for hours on end. We’ll have realized that multi-tasking destroys not just our brains, but our creativity – and webinars and other online training efforts will be worth whole hilarious episodes. By then, we’ll have traveled through our romance with technology and we’ll be back to treasuring the outdoors, solitude, silence and reading. HR will take it’s rightful place as the learning hub of the organization, not the paperwork and rules hub – and we’ll gather together in person. It will seem quaint and frightening to the 2059 television audience that we ever frittered so much time away on technology.
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