Chapter 9, Part Four: My Own “Office;” Ruth Gordon and the Yellow Dress; Hallways: Off-limits to Bikes.

After being a constant presence in his office, Parker now seemed never to be there; when he was, he appeared to be daydreaming.  He came in late (later than I did).  He would walk past my desk trailing an almost imperceptible effluence of alcohol that Alan, a co-worker, alerted me to.  Alan from Alabama had a slight Southern accent, a soft-spoken guy- tall and lanky, with limp, longish blonde hair.  He was a senior underwriter and an assistant vice-president.  I'd never seen him in a suit or a suit jacket over his white dress shirt and tie, and khaki slacks.  His office was two down from Parker’s.  The guy in the one between his and Parker's quit after I’d been there only a couple of months.  It stood vacant for more than a week.  Parker hadn’t decided to hire anyone to replace him.  These offices were no more than roofless glass cubicles (See illus. below) set at right-angles to the back wall, with glass fronts and thick glass doors, that seemed always to be open.  

             “Why don’t you move into the vacant office?”  Alan said, turning to me from the side chair beside my desk.  “You deserve it.  You’re a senior underwriter.  You shouldn’t have to sit in the middle of the floor, right in everyone’s path-
            "-And being mistaken for a receptionist."
            "Parker can see you every minute of the day.”

            “When he’s here.”

            “Well, there’s that.  But that’s not the point.”  He paused, then brightened, “Hey, he’s not in today, so, come on.  I’ll help you move.”  So that afternoon, Alan and I packed up my desk, piled files, my in-and-out box and other stuff on a chair and in a couple of trips, wheeled it all into the vacant office.   Parker was not pleased when he showed up the next day.  Standing just inside my door, he growled,

            “How could you just take it upon yourself to move without consulting me?”  Alan, who happened to be going over an account with me, said, 

            “R-, listen.   Agents and brokers come in, they see an empty office right next to yours,” he reasoned, “it’s not conducive for business, makes it seem like the Company is not doing well.”

            “Well, we’ll see how it works out, then,”  R-said, eyes red and bleary.  He flopped down behind his desk and lit a cigarette.

            Inane Muzak constantly warbled through the PA.   On one very slow summer day, Parker hadn't shown up, Alan and I were chatting in my office when “Top Hat” came on.   He jumped up on a chair and started singing, then leaped on my desk and did a few tap steps in a clear space.  I sang along with him.   Co-workers passed by, glanced at us, then walked on. 

Astaire & Rogers in "Top Hat."

   Lisa (I think that was her name), a woman with a slight frame and long, brown hair, peered in the door and laughed.  She was wearing a soft yellow, scoop-neck, dress with ¾ length-sleeves and a swing skirt that hit her just below the knee. 

            “What do you guys think you’re doing?”

            “What does it look like, honey?”  Alan said, jumping down from my desk, “We’re putting some life into our boring old jobs.   I mean, how can you hear “Top Hat” and not dance?”   He started to take her around the waist, but giggling, she twirled away. 

           “Man,” Lisa said, going to her office, “they could at least play something groovy:  Beatles, or   Carole King, anyway.”

          “Earth, Wind and Fire,” I called after her, adding, “Hey! I really like that dress.”

 The next day, she told me she’d gotten another job.  This was her last day.  She handed me a box and told me not to open it until I got home. 

            “You know,” she said, “You and Alan made coming to work fun.  I hope there’ll be someone like you guys at my new job.  In fact, I hope you won’t feel insulted, but you remind me of Ruth Gordon.”

          “Insulted?  No.  Thanks.  She’s one of my favorite actresses.”

Ruth Gordon

 I opened the box when I got home; inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was the yellow dress.  It was kind of weird, I thought, because she hadn’t had it cleaned.  I held it up and looked at it.  It smelled slightly of underarm deodorant and perspiration and had some small holes in the fabric near the hem.   When I got it back from the cleaners, I tried it on.  It fit perfectly.  The color brought out my summer tan.  I disguised the tiny holes with an orange sunburst tie-dye patterns.  It ended up being one of my favorites.

“I can’t believe it’s the same dress!”  Alan said when I wore it to work. “It looks beautiful.  I love the tie-dye.  Perfect.”  I didn’t tell him about the holes. 

The papers were full of news about Daniel Ellsberg leaking the truth about Vietnam to the New York Times.  The documents were dubbed “The Pentagon Papers.”  People wondered if this prompted military veterans to admit to US atrocities in Vietnam.  Earlier that year, Calley had been tried and convicted for the My Lai massacre, and Charles Manson and his evil minions were sentenced to death after one of the longest trials in California history.  The only people I could talk to about these things in the office were Alan, and Lisa, before she quit.  I overheard someone in the coffee room say that Ellsberg was a traitor and should be executed for treason.   And whenever I brought up the Black Panthers, someone would remark, “I’m ready for ‘em.”  When I'd ask how, they'd never elaborate.   Lisa and I wondered what kind of hold a guy like Manson had over women.  “Creepy!”  We were glad that he and his “harem” got their due.
 

Daniel Ellberg

 Towards the end of summer, business picked up as usual and we were asked to work overtime.  One evening, Alan peaked in.

          “Aren’t you going home? It’s almost 6.”

          “I just want to finish a few things,” I said, “I don’t want to have to face them tomorrow.  It’s quiet.  The phones aren’t ringing.  I can get a lot done.” 

 I lost track of time;  I reached a stopping point.  The office seemed eerily quiet.  Muzak had shut down. The janitors were going around emptying waste baskets and turning off lights.   I gathered up my bag, pulled on my coat and went into the supply room for my bike.  I started to wheel my bike down the deserted hall for the quarter of a mile that separated me from the elevators.  I stopped, listened, looked around, climbed on my bike and rode the distance.  I chuckled to myself.  I felt I was doing something wrong, but what law was there that said you couldn’t ride a bike down an empty hall in a place that had closed for the night?  There was absolutely no one there.

But someone had ratted on me.

Parker called me into his office the next morning and started ranting away about me jeopardizing Yosemite’s liability . 

    “What if you hit someone?”  I tried to protest, explain that there was no one around to hit.

He countered with, “What if YOU got hurt?”  

       “How?  I only rode a few feet.   I’ve been riding for years.”

       “I don’t want to hear it!  I’m revoking your privilege of stowing your bike in the supply room.  You’ll have to take your chances outside.”

      Who had seen me?  Alan hadn't a clue.  Verne had left hours before I did.  A janitor?  But why?    Oh, well, I had other things to think about.  Parker had confirmed a rumor that the company was moving the SF branch to its corporate headquarters in Evansville, Indiana.  He assured us that if we wanted to relocate, we would retain our current positions.   I didn't want to leave the City for Evansville.   One of the questions on insurance industry applications was: Are you willing to relocate?  One Human Resources interviewer had advised me that it would be to my advantage to mark it, “Yes”, ensuring promotions and raises.  She hinted that I could always change my mind.  I never took the bait.  I had left San Francisco once and didn’t want to think about leaving it again.  We had a couple of months to find another job.  Alan was moving back to Alabama.  His ailing mom was dying.

        “But, darling,” he said, “I’ll be back when, well, you know . . .” 

Next: Chapter 10, Part One.   The Surreal Los Angeles Mutual Insurance Company:  Werner Gross, my  Bosses, Mexican Décor, and Orange Velvet Poof Chairs.

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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?