For "Mad Men" watchers: Does anyone know how realistic that office atmosphere is?

[Arugula Latte]

I love Mad Men and the visuals are striking -- the fashions, the furniture, the interior decor, the hair styles, etc. Does anyone have any idea if the atmosphere depicted the show (about a circa 1960 Madison Ave. ad agency) really was the norm, where openly drinking Scotch mid-morning (or any time of the day, really), three- or four-Martini lunches, rampant and blatant sexual harassment, and non-stop smoking was just par for the course?

If so, :wow:

[evlbstrd]

1. For an ad agency, realistic.

When I was a kid, I had a pediatrician who smoked during office visits. My mom smoked unfiltered Phillip Morris through six pregnancies.

[dawgmom]

2. I looooooove that show

I have friends 10 to 15 years older than me who say it is very accurate -- at least the sexual harassment and the smoking. Not so sure about the drinking.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. People smoked at work up until the early '70s. I remember how happy I was

when they started prohibiting it. Drinking at lunch was common, too, at least among executive types. And sexual harassment of some kind was the norm in most workplaces -- there weren't too many women who didn't get hassled and pestered at work in those days. Ask any woman over 50...

[dawgmom]

4. Actually, the smoking and the harassment lasted longer...

Smoking was still allowed into the early 80s in a lot of workplaces. Sexual harassment and that kind of blatant sexism -- lasted longer than that. I never worked in an environment where there was drinking. I think that may have been a very specific thing to New York and to the corporate world -- the whole "three martini lunch" thing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Minnesota passed the first clean indoor air act in the country in 1975.

So I guess I was lucky in that respect -- we haven't had to put up with the smoking stench at work for a very long time. I haven't been sexually harassed in a long time, either, but that's probably because I'm old now. I'm sure it still happens, though maybe less overtly than in the bad old days.

[LynneSin]

7. My first job out of college they smoked at the office

But soon after I started they switched to where you could only smoke inside the breakroom or someone's office. Which my office (I'm a non-smoker) was between two very heavy smokers. And my family wondered why I had a smokers hack.

[sasquatch]

6. You can smoke at the factory I worked at up till 2002, indoors up to 2006

[DS1]

9. so you had to come back inside to light one up?

God damn you must have been some real slackers

Hey ya'll, ya can smoke inside if you work the machines

[rug]

8. I worked at an ad agency on Madison Avenue and 56th Street in the mid-80s.

The only thing different was the furniture.

[Arugula Latte]

10. Yowza.

Times have sure changed.

[madrchsod]

11. everything in that show is correct

i watch it for the fashion and set design....

[Arugula Latte]

12. It is a gorgeous show.

The colors are so rich and saturated.

[MrScorpio]

13. They used to smoke in offices in the early 80's when I joined the USAF

Open windows were my friends

[BlueJazz]

14. One of the most intelligent shows on TV..Love it!