CHAPTER 9, Part Two: Small Agencies, Small Minds, Big Changes.

Planning to quit Continental Insurance, I saw an ad in the SF Chron for a junior account rep at a small agency on Pine Street off Sansome.  I applied and got the job which they held for me till the two weeks notice I gave at Continental were up.  It was a rocky time for me personally and for the US.  The Vietnam war continued despite the protests, and in May 1970, four Kent State students, who were part of an anti-war demonstration at the university in Ohio, were shot and killed by the National Guard, nine were injured, shocking the nation and the world.   

Iconic photo at Kent State, May 1970

 

 Lynn and I weren’t getting along.  Bob K-, the owner of our four-story rented quasi-Victorian  on 20^th Street, wanted to sell as he was moving his family to Santa Rosa.  The house was literally falling apart. When it rained, the roof leaked and rain-water dripped on our bed and all over the floor.  The main sewer line underground in the back yard broke and that side of the yard collapsed the neighbor’s fence and undermined the earth.  Bob tried to patch it with plumber’s putty which lasted only a couple of days.

He offered us the house, but Lynn didn’t want to buy it unless Bob fixed all the problems.  I couldn’t envision going into debt when we were verging on breaking up anyway.  So, he went ahead and listed it.  For weeks we endured buyers traipsing through while the agent explained that, no, there was no hole in the floor underneath the cast-iron man-hole cover and base, grunting, as he shoved it aside and back to prove it.  Lynn and Jim Hester had lugged this "artifact" home from a street reconstruction site one night after the bars closed. They'd rolled it into the middle of the front room and set it up.  Lynn draped a throw rug, designed like the sun, over it.  At our parties, friends jumped on top and danced.

Bob got a buyer, and I got a new guy, R-, a longshoreman and merchant seaman, whom I met through a friend from North Beach.  One day, I came home from work- and the kids from school- to find an eviction notice nailed to the front door.  We had to be out before the month was up.   Lynn bought a motor home and took off, leaving us his dog, Ralph.  While adjusting to my new guy and job,  I looked for a house after work and on Sundays.  I found one on Beacon Street in Diamond Heights, not too far from Eureka Valley, so the kids didn't have to change schools.   We had a view of downtown, the bay, the Bay Bridge- gorgeous scene at sundown with the sun's reflection glinting reddish-gold from windows on the East Bay hills; and at night, the lights on Market Street cut a brilliant white, diagonal swath from Twin Peaks to the Ferry Building.   I still rode my bike to work, sailng down the hills to Market Street into the financial district.  Coming home wasn’t as much fun. 

View from Diamond Heights looking East,except the
 Transamerica Building was still being built.

For the next year or so, I worked at the agency for a few months, then a couple more, ending up at Yosemite Insurance Company on Market near Third St.  It seemed that when I was at an agency a while, my boss would call me into his or her office and say “I’m sorry, but you aren’t working out.” And can me.  Weirdly, they all said that I was a “valuable, experienced underwriter,” so they lined up jobs for me, gave me a good reference, and guaranted I’d be hired.  Which I was. 

On my first day at one of these short-lived jobs, I was shown a desk and a phone and that was it.  Somehow, my big, beefy boss, who, unlike most agency men who could afford high quality clothes, favored dull, grey, ill-fitting suits.  He walked around with his nose in the air, expected me to figure everything out on my own.  He never looked at me when I asked him questions, gave me vague answers, and was rarely in his office.   I didn’t know who my clients were, what insurance companies we had contracts with- anything.  The files were a mess and none of my cliquish, co-workers would talk to me.  It was a set up.  One day, on a rare occasion when my boss was in his office, I looked up from my desk through the partly opened door and spotted R- .  Working on the docks before the advent of container ships in the Port of SF in 1969, he had to shout to be heard.  He carried this trait into his personal life, modulating his tone only slightly. 
  

          “Hey, sweetheart!” he bellowed, “Happened to be passin’ through from the hall [hiring hall], thought I’d see how you were doin’!” 

          I went to him, took his arm, pulled him into the corridor, and tried to explain that the conservative insurance industry didn't like its employees having personal visits.  This rule had been emphasized to me, as a new hire.  R- said next time he'd call first.  I told him we were not allowed to make or receive personal phone calls, either. (You considered it an honor and a perk when you got your own phone.)  He refused to understand; miffed, he finally left.  I went to the bathroom, threw cold water on my face, took a few deep breaths, and went back to work.  When I got home that night he confronted me with the incident.  He still didn't get it.  His mother worked for the City, he said, and he’d pop in to see her several times a week, what’s the big deal?  A few days later, my inattentive boss gave me the “it’s not working out” line.   I wondered if R's visit had something to do with it.

Market Street at Third

   

Anyway, my boss, at the agency (I don't remember its name ) I went to right after Continental Insurance was a Dina Merrill look-alike.  She showed me my desk in the small accounts and personal lines department, right outside the president’s office.  She was a thin, icy blonde, had a noticeable mustache, long black hair on her arms, and an atrophied leg I figured maybe from polio. I felt sorry for her because I sensed that her leg must turn guys off.  Well, I rationalized, most wouldn’t be sympathetic to her condition anyway.  Still, there was that mustache and those hairs on her arms. She was placidly beautiful in silk, shirt-dresses, and wore her  hair down to her shoulders.  She never raised her voice.

“Dina” and others coached me about my clients; explained how to deal with insurance company special agents; and office protocol.  J- the president, looked like Jimmy Stewart.  Dina catered to his every whim.  He was in his mid-forties, dressed in Brooks Bros ivy-league suits, suspenders, and button-down striped shirts with white collars, and pencil-thin ties.  The vice president, M- was about 30, dark and swarthy, with bushy, black eyebrows and receding hairline. In dress, he was a clone of his boss.  I told M- that I rode a ten-speed to work and asked him if I could bring it into the office because I’d  had too many stolen when I locked them up on the street.  No, I couldn’t, he said, but he arranged for me to use the freight elevator in front of the building to take it down to the basement.  An old, white haired man reluctantly stopped wrangling boxes of supplies and equipment, and guided me to a cramped, dark storage room where I could lock my bike.  Great, I thought.  I could hardly see and the overhead light didn't work.

        "It'll be safe there," he said, then went on, "Look, honey, I close shop exactly at five and if you ain't down here to load your bike on the elevator by 4:59, too bad!"    There were times I barely made it.

        M- visited the break room one noon, which officers rarely did.  He  asked me how storing my bike in the basement was working out.   He used to lock his bike down there, he said.   

      “I rode my bike in to the City every morning from Sausalito.  It was a beautiful ride both ways, across the Golden Gate Bridge.  I loved it."

      “I can imagine,” I said, “Do you still ride?  I guess you can park your bike in your office, now.”

      “Oh, no.  Ever since I got a promotion to vice-president, I stopped.  I really miss it.”

      “Why didn’t you keep riding?”

      “What?  And ruin my image!”
I was beginning to feel that commuting by bike would jeopardize my chances for a promotion.  As a woman, it was hard enough to get recognition, a raise, and a title, let alone have riding a bike to work be a factor.  It came down to what I loved the most: the job or riding my bike. That day, K- a helpful co-worker, who was married to a Filipino, brought in home-made dishes to share.  K- offered M- some chicken adobo.  He thanked her, said he’d just eaten, and left.

     “I’ve never known anyone to refuse chicken adobo, except vegetarians.  Wonder what he’d of done if I’d offered him balut,”  K-said

     “What’s that?” I asked.

     “Duck embryo in the shell.” 

Commuting by bike on Market Street in the pre-helmet days.

  

      Julie, a slender brunette about my age was hired shortly after me.  Inspired by my method of commuting, she bought a ten-speed.  She had an easy, short ride down a few hills from her place on lower Nob Hill.  She didn’t come in one day and was a no-show for over a week.  Personnel told me she’d had a bad accident on her bike, but couldn’t give me any details.  Almost two weeks later, I looked up from my desk and saw her standing there with a scar on her forehead that ran from her hairline, across her forehead to just above her left eyebrow.  She saw the expression on my face,

            “It’s okay, really,” she said, nonchalantly.  “I’m glad I’m alive.  I learned my lesson,” she went on: “Never hang a big heavy bag over handlebars.  Mine got caught between the fork and the wheel when I was speeding down the hills, and my bike suddenly stopped!   I got thrown over the handlebars and landed on my face in the street!  It’s funny, but I don’t remember anything, except being in the hospital with this huge bandage on my head.  The nurses and everyone told me what happened, and how they tweezed all the debris from my cut and cleaned it.  There was lots of blood.  Hey, I could’ve died!  But I’m not giving up!  I bought a new bike and rode in this morning.”  I admired her spunk. She became a good friend.

One morning, J- came out of his office, stood in front of our desks and said,

     “I am tired of seeing the sloppy way you people attach forms to our client files.  Some are stapled, some are scotch taped, some torn at the corners and folded over.  What are you?  Kindergartners?”  He paced back and forth, with his thumbs hooked into his suspenders.  “After lunch,” he went on, consulting his watch, “promptly at one, I want to see all of you in my office.  I’m going to give you lessons on exactly how to attach forms to our copies of clients’ policies!”  He turned, marched into his office.  The glass in his door vibrated when he slammed it.  We turned to look at each other, stifling giggles. 

     “Should we synchronize our watches?” someone asked, and we all broke up.  Dina was not pleased.

Like good little soldiers or naughty school kids sent to see the principal, we were in his office at one and were there for the rest of the day as ringing phones swamped the receptionist.  J-, with Dina at his side, instructed us to line up in front of his desk.  He stood at it with files and forms spread out on top.

     “First, I will demonstrate how I want each of you to attach forms to files.  Then, come up to my desk one by one and do exactly what I’m about to show you.  I want you to fully understand this procedure.”   Like a magician, he swept something from behind his back: a bottle of Le Page’s glue.  Dutifully, we stood next to him, watching, as he carefully swiped the glue-laden rubber tip neatly across the top of a form and glued it to our copy of a client’s policy.  Smiling, he looked at us, sighing, with satisfaction.  Then it was our turn.

Next up: Chapter 9, Part Three.  I am invisible, short shorts.   I land a senior underwriters job at Yosemite Insurance; and a surreal experience at a fly-by-night company in the brand new Bank of America building, with the black sculpture in front that the late Herb Caen presciently dubbed: "The Banker's Heart."  And: is there some law against riding a bike in an empty hallway after hours?

Man on the Moon, Stonewall, Manson & More . .

CHAPTER 9, Part One:        

  Outside of work, exciting things were happening.  Jim Hester, a friend of Lynn’s gave us a TV so we could watch history being made on July 20, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon.  We watched, awestruck, as Neil Armstrong took the “first step for mankind” on the moon’s surface, at about 8PM PDST, three hours ahead of schedule we were told.    Later, we went outside and stared through patches of the fog at the moon with naked eye and with binoculars to see if it looked any different.  Some neighbors peered through telescopes.   Everyone at work was talking about it the next day.  We’d beat the Russians to the Moon!  Then someone suggested that the whole thing was staged to take the attention off the war.  Hoax theories, based on photographs taken on the moon, still abound.  I, and most of my co-workers, believed it really happened.  

Stonewall protests in Greenwich Village

Not a week later, the Stonewall riot in Greenwich Village took place between two thousand protesters and 400 police, calling attention to the discrimination against gays.   The gays I knew at Continental (See previous post) didn't talk about it openly at work, but told me about the joyous atmosphere in the bars in the Castro. 

Charles Manson: Then and Now

Then August brought the Manson Family’s bloody massacre of Sharon Tate and others.  Actress Tate was eight month pregnant with Roman Polanski’s baby. 

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate

 The Beatles’ song, “Helter Skelter,” was blamed as the impetus that drove Charles Manson (who’s still in prison) and his wacked out “family” to go on a killing spree. 

   Next:  Woodstock, a festival of peace, and live rock for 500,000 people, was held in a farmer’s meadow in upstate New York; a festival alleged to have changed the world.

Woodstock Festival

 One day in October of that year was declared Peace Day and half-million protesters across the nation showed up for the First Vietnam Moratorium. 
   And the war went on for at least four more years.   A few days later, Beat writer, Jack Kerouac died.

Jack Kerouac of "On the Road" fame.

  The Supreme Court ordered nationwide desegregation.  The insurance industry- in fact in all of the the financial district, remained dominated by whites with "people of color" relegated to service jobs: running elevators, maintenance, or hidden away in the typing pool orthe mail room.  Any "on the floor" were file clerks.  Throughout the rest of the year, more peace marches took place involving half-million or more in D. C. alone; Calley was charged for the My Lai massacre; US troop deaths and injuries top 100,000.   And on Christmas Eve, the Rolling Stones held a free concert at Altamont outside of Sacramento, California to match that held at Woodstock.   Lynn and I thought about going, but decided against it, mostly because his ride was a 1940 Pontiac Sedan and we feared it would break down on the freeway. 

1940 Pontiac 4Dr Sedan

 In the end, we were glad.  The concert turned violent.  The Stones had hired the Hell’s Angels “security” faction to police the crowd and one attendee was killed.  What were they thinking?  (See a Hell's Angel to Jagger's left in the picture below.)

Mick Jagger at Altamont

Continental’s Branch Manager, Mr. What’s-His-Name got sent to head up another office in some other city, maybe Portland.  Honchos from New York came west to take over in SF, and my department got a new boss.  First thing he did was call a meeting not only to introduce himself, but to give us the news, in a few short           words, of changes, one that would affect me, specifically.  One Friday, my supervisor, Tom Morgan, came over to my desk and sat down  and gave me the news (every desk on the open floor has a chair at its side so people who have to consult you on an account, visit, advise, or whatever).  “I hate to tell you this, but ‘they’ need experienced raters downstairs, and your name came up.”  In short, I’d been demoted to “rater”- no longer a senior underwriter.  Did Mr. What’s-His-Name tell the newby manager about my Time Magazine letter?  Tom didn’t know when I was to report to that department.   I told Lynn about it and that I really didn’t care.  I felt it was time for a change anyway.  Still, the weekend seemed to drag.  Thank heavens for my kids who always provided a wonderful distraction, whether they ran in and out of the house with their friends, or were in the Pontiac with us on the way to Mt. Tam or just out to the beach.

One of the many "easy" trails on Mt. Tamalpais.

 Monday morning, on time for once, I started to hang up my coat and shove my purse in my desk when I saw Tom walking toward me.  Looking morose, he got right to it.  “They need you downstairs right away, sorry.”

 The rating department was hidden away in the windowless basement.  I’d had to venture down there sometimes when a rater had a question on of my accounts.   Some things couldn’t be handled over the phone; you had to see the file.

 That first morning felt interminably long, I kept glancing at the clock, waiting for coffee break.  When the break bell rang, I left my desk and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” asked my new supervisor whose name I've forgotten, but  recall as being a heavy-set woman in a paisley patterned dress, bouffant bob, and cat’s eye glasses.

“Just down the street for coffee,” I said.  “The coffee here is horrible.  I always go out for a decent cup.  Want me to bring you one?”

“No! Not any more, you don’t.”

“Why?  I never-” I started to explain.

“Didn’t anyone tell you that your job classification has changed to ‘Non-exempt’?”

“No.  What does that mean?”

“It means, my dear, that you cannot leave the building during the work day except for lunch.  Workman’s Comp rules- and you cannot leave the department unless you’re going to the restroom.”  This was a blow.  So, if I wanted a caffeine fix, I was stuck swilling down the company’s battery acid coffee.   I ended up bringing my own from home the preparation of which added a few more minutes to my routine, hence adding a couple minutes to my already ingrained lateness.   The signal that break was imminent was the sound of coffee carts being trundled around to each floor and each department .  These carts held two huge, plastic, spigotted urns (coffee and hot water), Styrofoam cups, Coffee-mate, Splenda, Lipton tea bags, gooey pastries and donuts.   By the time the carts traveled seven floors, through many departments, ending up in the basement, bitter dregs was what was left of the coffee.  These heavy carts were pushed by middle age, Latino or Filipino women, barely five-feet tall, whom most employees treated as though they were appendages to the carts. 

Office coffee service.

  I found that when I tried to start a conversation, they looked away or down, or fiddled with items on the cart.  I chalked it up to maybe they couldn’t speak English.  Yet, these encounters made me think of films and documentaries I’d seen of blacks in the south reacting to white people.

A week or so later, I came across a problem on an account and took the file with me as I left to go up to my old department to talk to the underwriter.  No sooner had I crossed the threshold, when Helen barked,

“You can’t take a file with you to the restroom.”   I almost laughed.  Why would anyone take a file to the bathroom?

“I’m not, Helen, I’m going to see an underwriter.”

“I told you, you cannot leave the floor.  Call him.”

When I started as a rater years ago, underwriters thought it beneath them to return our phone calls, much less acknowledge our existence.   I learned that when I had a question, to confront them personally.  I always got results.  From then on, they returned my calls.  So I went back to my desk and rang the underwriter.   The underwriters knew me: I was one, once.  If I didn’t get a call back, I’d have to let it go and get blamed for the mistake.

I started interviewing for another job.

Next: Chapter 9, Part Two.  I get short-lived account rep underwriting positions at small insurance agencies and, at one, along with other underwriters, am given gluing lessons at the agency's president's desk, by Himself, no less.   And personal issues, as well.

CHAPTER 8, Part Five: Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy's killers; National Guard and police attack hippies and Black Panthers, and more . .

Photo © by Janine Wiedel, printed without permission.
For two weeks in 1969, the National Guard barricaded Berkeley streets with barbed wire on which protesters pin flowers during protests and riots in People's Park.

Against the backdrop of the conviction and sentencing of the killers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Black Panthers vs. police, and people attacked by the National Guard, I start commuting to work on a three-speed Raleigh bicycle.

In March, James Earl Ray got 99 years for killing MLK, Jr. A few weeks later, Sirhan was sentenced to death for the murder of Robert Kennedy; and the troops in Vietnam number 543,000. Student strikes and anti-war protests grow. That same year, the Oakland Police ambushed the Black Panthers, and hippies in Berkeley's Peoples’ Park were attacked by police and the National Guard.

Over the years, I had given my kids bikes for Christmas and Lynn bought me a classic three-speed Raleigh with a back-rack (See picture). Now that the boys were older and went to Douglass Elementary (now Harvey Milk Academy) just down the hill and my sister and brother- in-law moved in next door, we no longer had to bus it downtown to school and back. After school, they’d be home for an hour, looked after by Sis till Lynn and I got home. So I started riding my Raleigh to work. This was pre-helmet 1969. I believe I was the only commuter riding down busy Market or Mission Streets with bike messengers. I soon upgraded myself to a 10-speed Gitane, which I bought at the newly established Valencia Cyclery on Valencia Street near 24th.

There were few if any bike racks close to the buildings I worked in, so I’d lock up to a parking sign pole. I finally found one a block away. One night after work, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The space in the rack where I'd left my bike was empty; someone had ripped it off. I felt sick and angry; I rode the bus home almost in tears. As soon as the insurance claim was paid, I bought a Peugeot. Paul , the owner of the shop, suggested I secure my new bike with a U-bar lock when I told him about the Gitane. I’d been using a cable with a padlock. Ignorantly, I went on using a cable until I lost a couple more bikes. I finally bought a U-bar lock. Later, when we moved further out in the Mission, whenever I visited his store, Paul would tell me that opening up in the morning, he’d see me whizzing down Valencia.

It took me about twenty minutes to get to work, a little less time than on the bus. I rode from 20^th St. down Collingwood to 18^th Street, then down 18^th to Mission, then cut over to Market to Sansome. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system was being built. Construction crews were tearing up Market Street from the Ferry Building to Van Ness, and Mission Street from where it meets Valencia all the way to Daly City, to dig the tunnels that would carry the BART trains and SF’s light rail streetcar: MUNI Metro. Normal bus and streetcar schedules and routes were completely disrupted. On my bike, I sped past all the mess and gloatingly waved at crowds of commuters abandoned on street corners when construction caused a power failure, stopping trolley busses and streetcars; and when diesel buses were delayed by break-downs or altered routes.

Continental Insurance had no showers for its employees. I never brought a change of clothes. After a while, using meditation and bio-feedback, I psyched myself out not to sweat. Also, since I rode every day, my body adjusted to the physical exercise. Mini-skirts and dresses were a slight problem, but mini-skorts came in handy. Gradually, I started wearing all-natural fabrics that could breathe: loose skirts, dresses, and short jackets. I stitched up for myself a series of what my friends called a coat of many colors, made up of quarter yards of various, brightly-colored corduroy fabric, in order to be visible to drivers.

My coat of many colors, modeled by Dino Petrucci, a friend who bartended at Rosa Pistola's (which became the famous Washington Square Bar and Grill, or "the Wash Bag" thanks to Herb Caen) in North Beach. He ended up having me make him one to wear to a Frank Sinatra concert.

I knew that by wearing such outfits to work would ruin any chance for promotion since I eschewed tight-fitting skirt suits and polyester or silk blouses, nor did I wear “heels” but flats, the easier to slip in and out of toe-clips; at times, dress shoes with a short heel. Panty-hose and tights were just coming on the market. Lynn hated them, saying they made women look like sexless Barbie Dolls. Still, some women, myself included, wore nylons with- or without seams up the back- and garter belts. Wearing them with mini-skirts, I believe I may have caused a few car crashes, because, as I passed on my bike, I heard screeching tires and shouts. I know I once caused a bus to lose its trolleys. Still, I rode on, mindful of what was going on in front and to each side.

Not only were there few places to lock up outside the office, companies provided no accommodations for bike storage during working hours. One day, I read an article in Time Magazine by a New Yorker whose boss let him bring his bicycle into the office when it rained. I sat down in front of a typewriter and, using Continental letterhead, wrote a letter to Time saying that I commuted to work by bicycle as well and how nice it would be if companies would allow its bike-riding employees that privilege, especially if it was raining, and also to keep their bikes from getting stolen. I typed my name, left the standard two spaces for my signature, then typed "Senior Underwriter" (which I was), signed it, Xeroxed a copy for myself , stuffed the original in a company envelope addressed to Time, and threw it in the mail pick-up bin. Time wouldn’t print it, I reasoned, they get tons of letters every day and my letter is about bicycles and rain. I totally forgot about it.

A week later, I got a call from Marion, the vice-president Mr. B-'s secretary, asking me to come to his office immediately. I had no idea why. So I hopped on the elevator to the executive suites on the seventh floor, and announced myself.

“Take a seat,” Marion said, “Mr. B- will see you in a moment.” Her console buzzed, she picked up a receiver, murmured something, looked at me and said, “Go right in, dear, he’s expecting you.” I walked in, sinking into the carpet; noticed he was holding a torn Western Union envelope, but though nothing of it. He gestured to a chair in front of his desk. I sat.

“I’m impressed that you got a letter published in Time,” he said, waving the telegram.

“I did?!”

“You might want to read this.” He held out the telegram, leaving me to stand, lean over his massive desk, and take it. (It would be beneath him to do the standing and leaning.) “I took the liberty of opening it,” Mr. B- droned on, “since it was addressed to you at Continental. I assume you wrote your letter on our stationary.” All the while, I was thinking: isn’t it a felony to open other people’s mail let alone a telegram? I should say something. But I was too excited about a major newsweekly accepting my letter. The telegram stated that my letter would appear in the next week’s issue.

“Yes,” I admitted, “I thought it would have a better chance of being published.”

“And so it was. Well, please let me see the magazine when it comes out. And, next time you ride your bike to work and it’s raining, just come to my office and I’ll see that you can leave it here overnight. It’s dangerous riding a bike in the rain, especially at night.” Mr. B- walked me to his door and said goodbye, patting me on the shoulder.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll take you up on that.”

“Please do.”

The skies were clear the morning I left for work on my bike a month or so later, but by early afternoon, it was pouring rain. I hoped it would stop around quitting time, but no such luck. I went up to the executive suite and approached Marion.

“Hi Marion, is Mr. B- in?”

“No, dear, he’s on vacation and won’t be back for a couple of weeks, why?”

“Well, he said I could leave my bike here whenever it rained."

"Yes? and . . .?"

"It's raining really hard, so can I leave it in the supply room overnight?”

“I’m sorry, he never said anything to me about that. You certainly can’t leave it here.”

“Why not? He said I could.”

“I know nothing about that,” she said, testily, getting her purse from her desk and pulling her coat from the rack. “I said you can't. You certainly can’t leave it here because of liability issues. I’m sorry.”

I ended up drenched, wheeling my bike down Sansome St. I spotted a parking garage on Pine and pushed my bike in. The guy in the booth said I could leave it overnight and charged me five bucks.

Next up: CHAPTER 9, Part One: A man on the moon, Stonewall riots in New York, the Manson Family massacre, and more, as honchos from Continental’s head office take over the SF branch, demote me, relegate me to a windowless room in the basement and restrict me from leaving the “floor” except for lunch. Time to move on.