CHAPTER 13, Part Four: My final years at the Fund. I confront Don P. with a strategy from "The Art of War;" how I came to schill for The Marin Civic Light Opera via mime; I get a promotion - lateral.

Taking the shuttle to Lucas Green one day for a brain-numbing class in Effective Communication, I saw we had a new driver, Patrick.  (Glenn had left the rose on the dashboard.)  I was still reading from “The Violet Fairy Book” so asked him if he’d mind if I read aloud as I had been before; he nodded, so I launched into, “Nunda, Eater of People,” which made me think of Don P. and the job in general.

One morning, I got to work early, hoping to catch Don before the workday started.  I wanted to try the "two-knives" samurai tactic (from "The Art of War") on him.  One was the element of surprise; the other confidence and preparedness when executing the “attack,” moving forward and not backing down.  He was sitting at his desk, staring off into space.  He looked up as I approached.   I told him I wanted to talk to him in private.  Startled, he sputtered, “Go ahead.”

                 “No.  In private.  Let’s go up to the cafeteria.  There’s hardly anyone there this early.”  He agreed.   We sat at a table as employees got coffee and left.

                “What’s this about?”  he asked. 

                “Breaks and lunch,” I said, opening the company handbook and reading the information regarding the matter.   When I finished, before he got a chance to talk, I added, “You can no longer get on my case about my right to take breaks and lunch.  Or when.”   I closed the manual, got up and said, “Thanks for allowing me the time to talk to you.”  And walked away, leaving his with his mouth hanging open.  He never bothered me again.

                Don knew I did mime performances in shows as well as for benefits.  He approached me one day and asked if I’d do something for the upcoming 1980 Winter Marin Civic Light Opera season where he’d be singing in the North Bay Opera Ensemble production of “The Student Prince”.    He said there’d be a small stipend.  They were having a board meeting in a couple of weeks. Since major subscribers would be there, he asked me to create something for publicity    He gave me the program, so I made a soundtrack of musical highlights, recorded it on tape, and worked up short, satirical mime pieces briefly describing it, which I rehearsed at home.  Don told me that my appearance was to be a surprise for the organization, so would announce me as a special guest.   He gave me a ride there after work on the Friday of the meeting.  I changed and made up in the bathroom on the site.  He kept knocking on the door, asking if I was ready, which unnerved me.

Me, in Costume

 I was ready.  He could announce me.

                 

I walked in, carrying my boom-box, wearing a simple costume of black leotards and turtleneck, white face and a black cap.  It was a lecture room.  There were 25-50 people there.  I set up my boom-box on the lectern, pressed play and did my bit in the narrow space between the seats and the wall.  People laughed and cheered.  I bowed, picked up my box and left.  By the time I finished changing and removing my make up, they had finished their meeting.  Don introduced me to the director, Marianne Ross, who thanked me, and gave me a check for twenty-five bucks.  She later wrote me a letter of recommendation in which she said, “Your interpretation of highlights from the Student Prince was excellent.  Of course, you know the effects ‘Deep in my Heart’ had on me.  I almost fell off my chair laughing; it was hilarious.” 

Marianne Ross's letter.

 

 Don lived in Novato and could drive me only to the nearest bus stop on 101.  Great.  It was about ten, totally dark.   I was starving.  Not even a Denny’s nearby.  I sat and waited.  A car pulled up, stopped, and a nebbishy guy in a white shirt, tie, and black-rimmed glasses, rolled down the passenger side window and hollered, “Do you need a ride?”

“To the City?”

“Not that far.  San Rafael?”

“Okay.”  I got in.  First thing he said was,

“Have you been saved?”  .  This was the last thing I wanted to hear; I was beat.  I’d take my chances on the road.

“From what?”

“Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?”  It was then I noticed all the Christian tracts and Bibles on the seat between us.  We were nearing San Rafael.  I spotted a bus stop.

“Let me off here,” I said.

“But- but- You know there are dangerous people out here.”

“None more than you.  Stop,” I said, loud and firm.”Let me out!”     He did.  

My  "ride"

“Remember, Jesus loves you!” he shouted getting the final words in as he pulled away.

Not five minutes later, a SF bound bus stopped.

                I don’t know if it was because of what I did for Don, but one day Fred called me into his office.  Don was sitting there.  Fred told me I was to start a new job with the cumbersome title of Business Systems Analyst Assistant Trainee. They explained that it was a lateral promotion.  No salary increase.  I had stuck it out for a year- and-a-half for this.

Nineteen-eighty was ending.  Early in the year the US boycotted the Moscow Summer Olympics (Sometime later, I somehow managed to score an official 1980 Olympics sweatshirt from a free-box, which I still have!) to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; also a grain embargo against Soviets backed by the European Commission.  1980 also saw the eruption of Mount. St. Helens which killed more than fifty, some reluctant campers  and long-time year-round residents who wouldn't leave though warned of the danger. (I happened to be vacationing with my youngest son, Douglas in La Jolla at my brother Russ's at the time.  We were stunned by the dramatic news accounts we saw on TV).  The year ended with the election of Ronald Reagan for US president, and, finally, the tragic assassination of The Beatles' John Lennon in New York. More on this and Reagan later.

In upcoming Chapter 13, Part Five, among other matters, I will talk of a tragedy that befell a beautiful, popular Project Manager who visited our department often to discuss her projects with Fred.  She was friendly and engaging and treated everyone equally.  Quick to laugh, she'd often stop to chat.  We all loved her.  The event shocked everyone.

                 

Chapter 13, Part Three. Another move- this time to the first floor, near the main entrance to the building.

The Wall near the entrance on California Street.  Notice the holes where a plaque had been removed.

Plaque designating the site as a cemetery.

Fireman's Fund's location on Laurel Heights was built on a former burial ground.

The illustration  is of the wall fronting the company's California Street side.  The other is of the plaque designating the site as a cemetery that had been removed from the wall, is shown on the right.  In 1924, three cemeteries started relocating south. All Laurel Hill burials were eventually moved to Colma after 1937, when the Supervisors successfully passed their ordinance. WWII slowed efforts, which weren’t completed until 1948.

Early one week, we trainees were told that we were moving down to the first floor to join the rest of the systems analysts, to have our desks packed up by Friday, and report to our new (to us) department on Monday. 

Monday morning, a woman from the human resources department (formerly “Personnel” ) met me.    She introduced me to my immediate boss, Don P. (whom I'd described in a former post).   I would meet Fred Hyndman later.  To my surprise and delight I saw that Wes Schultz would be sitting right behind me.  His face lit up when I walked up to his desk.

“I thought you went to that brokerage company,” I said.

           “Well, these guys-“ he waved a hand at Don and Fred,  “-got me more money than they were going to pay me, so . .  .  I’m used to it here.  I like it.  Even more now that you’re in my department"- he laughed, “ again!”  Jerry Nelson ended up at a desk catty-corner from me, across the room.  As I was unpacking my box and arranging things on top and in drawers, Don P. stopped by.  He leaned over, and said, quietly,

“You understand that this move is not a promotion.  You’re still a trainee in the program testing division.” 

“No,” I said, “Bonnie, who recruited me, told me I’d be hired as a systems analyst trainee and that the testing was part of it.”  Don leered, then said,

“You were misled, dear.  This is a two-year job and only then will you be eligible for that position.”  Shit!  I thought. “Sorry,” he said, ambling off.  My compensation was that I was paid so much more than any job I’d had so far.  I figured as long as I’d be working with Wes and Jerry, I’d be fine.  Wes was on his phone while all this was going on.  I could tell by what he was saying that it was a personal call.  It seemed he was on his phone more than actually working.  His conversations were suggestive and sexual and I was uncomfortable overhearing them.   Then he’d say something clever and I’d end up laughing.

Fred Hyndman welcomed me to the department.  He was a tall man with what used to be called an “olive complexion. “  He wore a brush mustache and had straight black hair in a traditional corporate haircut.  He seemed approachable and affable and I found out that when I couldn’t work things out with Don, I could go to Fred.  I sensed he was on my side.   He later told me his father was German, his mother was from South America (I don’t remember which country).   He stood  rather than sat behind his desk in his office .  One day as I passed by, he said, more musing, talking over me and looking off into the distance.  He imparted the following wisdom:  “You know?  When you take vitamins, you don’t have to throw your head back to swallow gelatin caps because they float.”  

That first week, we took a shuttle to Lucas Green, our branch office devoted to the writing, development and testing of dedicated computer programs.  When for some reason I had to go there alone, I'd get off the bus on 101 at the Lucas Valley stop and walk across on short weedy underpass to the other side.  Rather than trek around to the entrance on Lucas Valley road, I'd jump across a water-filled gully, climb up the bank (see below) and weave my way through the shrubs to the walkway leading to the entrance.  George Lucas's Skywalker ranch was further down the road, hidden from view among rolling hills and trees.  In 1978, Lucas began buying the land, named for the rancher, John Lucas (no relation, despite rumors) who inherited the land from Tom Murphy, in 1853.

Lucas Green location

 At the time, I took a break from reading “The Art of War,” intending to utilize some of the strategy at work, and started on a book of fairy tales from The Violet Fairy Tale Book.  I was reading it on the shuttle.  Our driver, I’ll call him Glenn, was just that- a driver on contract.  He was a short, 40ish guy with waving graying, brown hair.  He had stuck a rose stencil on the van’s dashboard.   When he saw me reading fairy tales, he asked if I’d mind reading aloud as a sort of entertainment on the way.

Cover of The Violet Fairy Tale book.

 “Man,” he said, “dig- driving back and forth is totally boring. And they don’t want me using this.” He indicated the radio and tape drive.  So, on our trips, I read fairy tales.  No one complained and most looked forward to them:  Candace, for one, and a 20- something good-looking guy who wore tight-fitting Calvin Klein jeans with Oxford button down shirts.  I teased him, mispronouncing the label as “Clean” instead of “Kline.”  Calling him, “Mr. Kleen Jeans”.    He tolerated my lame attempt at humor with a gratuitous laugh.  One thing I noticed about working in computer related departments, men didn’t have to wear suits.  Still, an unspoken rule was that women had to dress  professionally- pant’s-or business suits, tailored dresses, heels, etc.  I started wearing flats since I no longer worked in the financial district.

Later, back on Laurel Hill, Don asked me what was the significance of Glenn’s rose stencil  “It’s some kind of cult symbol, isn't it?  What does it mean?” 

“I have no idea,” I said, “Why don’t you ask him.”

“Me?  Why should I?  I don’t talk to service employees.  Could you find out?”

“No.  If you want to know, you ask him.  I couldn’t care less what he’s involved with.”

“That’s because you belong to it.”

“What?”  From then on, I made sure I had very little to do with Don. Yet, in order for him to explain a program  we were going to test, he’d pull up a chair beside my desk, lean over to show me diagrams and flow charts.  That close, I could see the dandruff flakes in his reddish-grey hair and on the shoulders of his windowpane brown plaid, wool sport coat .  His teeth were yellow and malformed.  Often he’d reach down to pull his sagging socks up from his scuffed loafers, revealing ankles ingrained with dirt.  And he smelled sour, like he’d slept in his clothes.  He was married, he’d told me.  I guessed his  wife either must not care, be just like him, or, had lost her sense of smell and had bad eyesight.  He had two kids.  His thirteen year old daughter,  he confessed  to me in a candid moment, kept running away from their Novato tract home. (I would actually meet his entire family later.)

At Lucas Green, we were given a tour of the mainframes which were housed in a huge temperature controlled room with a paneled floor beneath which ran bundles of wires.  Behind glass paneled cabinets we saw what looked to me like giant revolving tape recorders.  The head of that department explained to us that every single bit of program information was on those reels as was every keystroke that entered data into the computers.   It was mind-boggling.

A mainframe computer room

 We were to test the accounting system so were shown which pre-loaded computers we’d use.  There were people there from other branches, too.  We were given hard-copy manuals of instruction of what we were supposed to find when we executed specific steps, entering certain characters and figures into labeled fields on the screen.  If what we entered came up with a different result than what was in the manual, we had to write out an “error message” form, which, at the end of the day, a programmer would collect to figure out what went wrong and correct it.  A woman from another branch kept calling them “air” messages.  “This don’t make no sense to me at all!” she exclaimed, “why the hell they’d say these’re “air “messages.”  Among us we decided to let the programmer explain, but still, we couldn’t help sniggering to ourselves every time she’d say, sighing and shaking her head, “Another damn air message!”  Needless to say, testing was really pretty brain-deadening and it felt like there were more errors than not.  Still we were told it was great that we were finding "bugs" so the accounting system could be reprogrammed. 

Late 1969 Lucas Green computer programmers

On Laurel Hill, the work was both boring and detailed with a lot of down time which made me, Jerry,  Wes and some others a little crazy.  Early December, we put up Christmas decorations.  A short,  sandy-haired, nondescript  man in our department, who came and went so I never really got to know him, decided to hang mistletoe from the particle-board, paneled ceiling.  He chose to stand on a desk half-way between mine and Jerry’s.  He climbed up, holding his mistletoe, reached up, realized he couldn’t reach the ceiling, jumped down, grabbed a chair, put it on the desk, climbed back up with his mistletoe, climbed on to the chair and immediately came crashing down with his mistletoe and all the other red and green crepe paper, holly, poinsettia cut out decorations that had been put up previously.  Words escaped from my mouth,  “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (The film had been out for a couple of years).  Jerry, Wes and a few others laughed, or choked trying not to.  The man, embarrassed, struggled to his feet, laughing at himself.  “I will not try that again.”  Wes, who was over six feet tall went over to him, took his mistletoe, asked him if he was all right, then standing on a chair, hung the kissing herb and re-hung all the rest of the fallen decorations.  We all clapped and hooted.

Often, Don would walk over to my desk with the excuse that he’d forgotten to tell me something important.  He’d sit there, watching me prepare test data to bring to Lucas Green.  At break time one morning, with him  sitting beside my desk, I went up to the cafeteria, one floor up, for coffee.   When I got back, Don told me that there was too much work to be done for me to be taking breaks, and that I was to report to him, ask him if I could go on break and let him know when I returned.  The next break time, I uses a tactic I found in "The Art of War" to let Don know I had some control.  I surprised him by instigated a meeting over coffee in the cafeteria and read him our rights regarding breaks from the company employee manual.  He quit hassling me.

I ended up staying in that department for over two years.  During which, in the outside world, Iran had invaded the embassy in Tehran and held hostages; an American Airlines plane crashed at O’Hare airport, killing almost 300 passengers along with people on the ground.  At the time it was said to be “The deadliest aviation incident on U.S. soil.”   US Government lent Chrysler enough to keep the auto company from going bankrupt.  The US boycotted Moscow’s 1980 summer Olympics to protest its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and enacted a grain embargo against the Soviet Union, supported by the European Commission.

During my summer vacation that year, while visiting my brother in La Jolla, we heard about the eruption of Mount  St. Helens, killing over fifty people, some brainless enough to stay in their campsites even though warned to evacuate.  1980 was a horrible year in which John Lennon was assassinated and Ronald Reagan was elected president- the Iran hostages were released when he  was sworn into office in January 1981.  People suspected some behind the scenes machinations, which were later revealed to be true.

Next up: Chapter 13, Part Four.  Over Don P., Hyndman promotes me.  The branch moves to Novato.  A tragedy occurs in the life of a popular employee.

The Novato location which encompasses both Laurel Hill and  Lucas Green operations.

  I leave The Fund permanently with a severance package that allows me to focus on theatre for a year.