Chapter 9, Part Three: The Dark Arts (I Am Invisible), Hot Pants, Short-shorts? Agencies: Yes, Companies: No;

Madame (Helene) Blavatsky

For some time, I’d been intrigued by the practice of astrology, metaphysics and psychic healing so read books by and about  Madame Blavatsky, Tibetan Yogis, Indian gurus, Dane Rudhyar, and Carl Jung.    Wherever I was working, when I’d gotten all my work done, and during slow times, I did horoscopes for co-workers and friends, hiding my charts and books in a bottom drawer of my desk, behind a box of tampons.

Carl Jung

 I liked the metaphysical notion that one’s mind creates one’s physical reality.  I had been practicing Tibetan meditation for a few years and got to where I could see colored auras around people- auras that were created not by staring at a color then seeing its compliment by looking obliquely from the subject.  The first time this happened, I was washing my hands in a white-tiled bathroom at work.   An older Russian woman, who had been a child when she and her parents suffered through the revolution that ousted Nicolas and Alexandra, was talking to someone and waving her hands.  I glanced at her and was stunned and excited to see yellow and electric- blue flares leaping from the tips of her fingers.   As soon as I was aware of what was happening, the flares disappeared.  From then on, I witnessed this phenomenon only occasionally, often when I least expected.   And I would see colored rectangles shoot out of people's heads or ovals hovering directly above them, which always shocked me.  What interested me the most, though, was the belief that if you meditated on becoming invisible, you could attain that state.  I meditated during my lunch hour, lying on the grass in St. Mary’s Square Park. 

Aura surrounding the body.

One day, when I was working at the gluing instructor's agency, a friend called to invite me for lunch in North Beach.  I told him that it would take much longer than our allotted forty-five minutes.  He assured me that he’d get me back in time, which I didn’t think possible.   So I closed my eyes and saw myself becoming invisible, then  walked away from my desk.   A couple of hours later, I was back.  The office hummed along, people went to and fro carrying files, making and answering calls.  K-, who sat behind me, said, “Hey!  You haven’t gone to lunch yet, it’s after 2.”   “It’s okay,” I said, “I’m not hungry.   I’ll get something at coffee break.”   Not sure how often I could pull invisibility off,  I never tried it again at work.

War protesters in DC

AND THE WAR DRAGS ON:

 "In retaliation for the Laos decision" to back thousands of South Vietnamese troops into Laos with U. S. air support, the Weather Undrground exploded a bomb in the Capital men's room.  On November 11, 1971, Nixon begins his "Vietnamization" withdrawal program and 188,300 US soldiers leave the country.

Soldiers in Vietnam 1971

SHORT-SHORTS or HOT PANTS

A new fashion attributed to Mary Quant of London, and other London fashionistas was evolving: hot pants or short-shorts.  We showed up in corporate offices in hot pants over tights, with boots, a blouse or sweater, and wore them everywhere.   I felt they were not that far removed from mini-skirts which were also seen on women in the workplace.   I made myself a pair from beige, wide-wale corduroy and wore them with black tights, flats, and a black turtleneck.  They made bike riding really comfortable.   In the office, I was relieved when no one said a word or looked at me weird.  “Dina” said that I was brave to wear such an outfit in the office.  She muttered, “I wish I could get away with it.”  I knew what she meant and my heart went out to her.  And I realized that I couldn’t possibly show up at an insurance company in them.   Agencies, I discovered, were a lot more liberal with their dress code. 

Airline "stewardess" uniforms 1970s

 Still, I preferred insurance companies over small agencies.  At an agency, as an account rep, you worked through the agency’s special agent with clients and insurance companies, trying to give both what they wanted.  One of my clients’ was an elderly woman who had taken over her dead husband’s winery.   In personal-lines, I took care of her home and auto coverages.   I looked through the file, which, along with policies, also contained correspondence between her husband, herself, and the special agent who had brought us the business.  He had been servicing the account for decades.  Their correspondence was friendly and chatty; he’d sent her heartfelt condolences when her husband died.   Then the special agent retired; he was replaced by a young, inexperienced guy.  From then on, the communication was cold, all business, and demanding.  I could tell from reading the widow's responses that his attitude confused her.   I felt bad and tried to commiserate with her as much as I could in my capacity.  I thought : Why didn’t the new guy read the file and get a feel for his client?  Evidently he wasn’t the type.  There were plenty of men (and later, women, I was to discover) who, to cover their inadequacies, adapted a brusque, know-it-all attitude, bluffing their way along.

A former co-worker sent me an ad for an experienced property underwriter at Yosemite Insurance; I applied and was hired.  I gave my “gluing” instructor and his sidekick my two weeks’ notice.

Yosemite Insurance, as I noted earlier, was a small company on the second floor of a building near 4^th and  Market, ironically, where the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition now has its office.  (Research prompted me to correct the location published in the previous chapter.)  The office manager gave me a desk right outside R- Parker’s, my new boss’s, office.  Behind me was a window that overlooked busy Market Street where I could keep an eye on my bike, locked to a metal pole.  Parker was a big, handsome, strawberry blonde guy in his forties.  My first day, a tall, beefy man with a mop of wavy brown hair, graying at the temples, showed up at my desk with a cart full of supplies.  “Hi, I’m Verne,” he said, “You’ll need this stuff to get started.  Let me know if you need anything else.”  Turns out, I would run into him decades later, after experiences at a few more agencies and companies, at Marsh & McLennan, Inc., where I was hired as a junior account rep until being laid off for early retirement about 25 years later.  Verne ended up manager of their supply department.
        I tried to check on my bike only when Parker wasn’t in his office, which was almost impossible.  Seems he was always there on the phone, chain smoking.  One day, standing at the window looking at my bike and watching people stream down Market Street, I sensed someone come up beside me.  It was Parker.
       “Watcha looking at, down there, hon?” he asked.  So I told him.  “Oh,” he said, “if that’s it, just bring it up to the office and park it in the supply room.”  I was going to like it here.

Next up:  Chapter 9, Part Four.  My Own “Office;”  Ruth Gordon and the Yellow Dress; Supply Room: Bikes okay;; Hallways: not; And, The Pyramid.

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.