Harry and I goofing off in our apartment on Castro, 1955
As instructed, I reported to Personnel promptly at eight. The Rosalind Russell look-alike phoned Laura to come get me. I had been assigned to her department, but in a different section. Laura was tall, with short, dark, curly hair and a beautiful Roman nose. We rode the elevator to the eighth floor. When we got off, I told her I thought the elevator operator was eyeing me. “He does that to all the new girls, but don’t worry, he’s not like the guy at the toy store.” She led the way to a row of desks divided from other rows by floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets. As we approached Katie, our supervisor, she put down her compact and lipstick and stood up behind her desk. A sinking, lead-ball feeling, like on my first day of kindergarten, weighed down my stomach.
Katie was tall, stately, with bleached blond hair. She wore a bright Kelly-green suit with a colorful flowered blouse. Her face was matted with pancake makeup; her lips, heavily lipsticked a shiny red. “So you’re Laura’s friend. She told me you went to school together. I’m sure you’ll like it here." Katie smiled, "Come, dear, I’ll show you where you’ll sit.” Laura went off to her section and I followed Katie to an empty desk near an aisle. “Here’s where you’ll be. Lizzie, here,” she said, indicating a girl at the next desk, “will train you.”
Lizzie! I knew her vaguely from high school! The lead ball in my gut seemed to get heavier. Lizzie was shy, quiet, and sweet. She wore glasses, had limp, straight brown hair with bangs, and large teeth. Why didn’t Laura tell me she worked here, too? Suddenly, I wanted to bolt. Lizzie had run around with a group of similar friends. She had been in a few of my classes, so I used to say “hi” to her in the hallways. I felt deflated. I had been in drama class, had parts in school plays; I’d been a cheerleader, a student body officer, and a teen model. I didn’t belong here with these women and girls whose heads were bent over their desks, poring over file drawers. This is a big mistake. Lizzie gave me a toothy smile, “Oh, you’re coming to work here! How wonderful!” she said, eyes sparkling. I took a deep breath and decided to stay.
My job, Lizzie explained, like everyone else’s in the department, was to work with a section of the alphabet, assigned by Rhonda, Katie’s assistant. I took one look at Rhonda and thought - - if she can be Katie’s assistant, I can do anything. Rhonda’s hair sat on top of her head like a ball of steel wool that had been pulled apart in all directions. Her features were scrunched together and her mouth twisted upwards. She wore very thick-lensed, clear plastic-rimmed glasses, which made her tiny, close-together brown eyes even tinier. I could deal with her face because she could do little about it, short of undergoing extensive plastic surgery. What bothered me, besides her hair, were her clothes. I mean, she could have done something about her clothes. It didn’t matter that she wore a simple skirt and cotton blouse, but for as long as I worked there, she showed up every day in the same outfit. And, from day one, her blouse and skirt looked as though she had dredged them up from the bottom of her ironing basket. Didn’t this woman have an iron? I happened to say something about this to Lizzie, who confided that Rhonda was married and had three kids. So, I guessed, with a full-time job, a husband, and three kids, Rhonda plain didn’t have time to iron.
I came to think it was kind of hip (the word for "cool" back in the day) not to give a damn about what you wore, what you looked like and never comb your hair. Lizzie also told me Rhonda had an IQ of 160, way beyond Mensa! Rhonda basically ran the department. Katie seemed to just sit at her desk, call her hubby on the phone, and apply more makeup and fresh lipstick at the same time. She’d been married for several years, Lizzie said, but was sad because for whatever reason they couldn't have kids.
Lizzie took me to the file cabinets whose drawers were filled with cards bearing an insured's policy information, and explained my duties from beginning to end:
Rhonda would assign me a section; I would go to the file cabinets and pull out long drawers, like library catalogue drawers, and fill out a slip, signing my name. I would then put the slip in the space left by the drawer, and take the drawer back to my desk. Then with rubber “fingers” slipped over my fingers, I would flip through the cards, looking for policies whose renewal premiums were due in a couple of months, and turn them on their sides, by expiration date, so they’d stick up out of the drawer. When I finished, I would fill out a green rec (request) card for every expiration card, remove the card from its drawer, and slip the rec card in its place. I would then carry the stacks of file cards to a designated area and someone from the billing department would pick them up and give them to the typing pool to type invoices. The billing people would then return the cards to us along with stacks of invoices.
The next to the last thing I had to do was to check the invoices against the cards for misspelled names, wrong premiums, or dates. Invoices with mistakes, along with the card, had to be returned to the billing department for correction. File cards, Lizzie warned, were often overlooked during the “flipping” stage and invoice mistakes were frequently missed. Rhonda, the ultimate bean counter, kept track of all our errors (missed cards and mistakes on invoices) and a note was made to our personnel file; Katie would be notified and would reprimanded us. Three reprimands and you were put on six months probation. Three more and you were fired. The last thing I did was refile the cards back in the drawers. Automation couldn’t come soon enough.
Needless to say, it was very boring work. We found ways to amuse ourselves. Laura and I jotted down insureds’ weird names and read them to each other on breaks: Scott Free, Colin Puffy, Arman Elbo, Julian Hunkapillar, Shaliksta Rakestraw, Rollo Beany, Ima Horney, and so on. We were desperate. Donna, a pouty (and potty-mouth), co-worker with long, shiny, black hair, and large brown eyes that sometimes looked sad, would bring in the Examiner every morning and we’d read Herb Caen’s column (Caen wrote for the Examiner from 1950-’58, then went back to the Chronicle). One morning, she read this to me:
A Cable Car had stopped in the middle of California Street near St. Mary’s Park and Chinatown. The conductor was kneeling in the street next to it, peering into the slot that ran the cable between the tracks. An ancient Chinese man hobbled over, bent down beside the conductor, and, heads together, they peered into the slot. The Chinese man said, “Wassa mala, s’ling bloke?”*
We fell out of our chairs, laughing. Katie pulled her lipstick tube away from her mouth and glared. Rhonda came around from her desk and sparks seemed to fly out of her hair. We froze. For the rest of the day, whenever we looked at each other, we’d rush to the bathroom, repeat what the Chinese man said, and crack up. I quashed boredom also by sketching caricatures of everyone in the department, which I hung over my desk on a string tied between my in-and-out baskets. My co-workers loved them and people from other departments clamored to have their caricatures done. I didn't dare touch Katie, and Rhonda was a walking caricature. Why mess up a good thing? Katie put the kibosh on my sketches saying they made the department look "unprofessional."
Coming up: Chapter Four, Part 2:
We are imprisoned due to Work Comp rules. Great subsidized lunches! Donna and I and Red Blanchard and the worm song; I improve my office skills at night and lose a husband. Met Life integrates its black cafeteria workers into its office staff. It's Meet Mr. North Day at the Met!(Company president.)
*I'm thankful Caen died before the stringent PC climate kicked in. I doubt he could've gotten away with this today.
