Of Jobs Past

I don't know if this is interesting, but the other day, instead of doing work, quite suddenly I thought about all the jobs I've had over the years, and was sorta stunned at how weird and different they all are to one another.


My first job was as a sort of teacher helper at my local church. I was in middle school. Did it in the summer. Essentially watched little kids whose parents sent them there five days a week while they were at work. They did crafts, every other day we went to the pastor's house where he had a pool. I made sure the little ones didn't drown. I got paid 25 dollars a month for it. Except for when I broke the see-saw and lost my month's paycheck as a result. I was then a kid myself and probably too young to do such dull work as watch other kids have fun.

I didn't do that the next year. My freshman year of High School I worked at Magee Women's Hospital. There was a self-playing piano in the very large foyer, with large windows instead of walls to bring in the light. I shuffled around on a wheeled cart free goods to be given out to the patients, like sewing material. This job was perhaps the most strange of all, especially for a young girl like myself, because of the juxtaposition between the two wards I had to cater. The first was the cancer ward. I had to knock on cancer patients doors and ask them if they wanted a flimsy bit of yarn and needles to make something while they lay in their bed in pain, or, as in some cases, while they died. There were many people I waited on one week that I did not see the next, and it was not because they had "checked out" in the traditional sense. I went to the front desk before I started my routine on that ward to ask if there were any specified rooms I was not to knock on. Every week they had a list of at least half a dozen.

After walking around this ward, which took about twenty-five minutes, I went to a ward directly opposite this. Opposite in more than just location. It was for mother's who had just had babies. I was never given a sheet at the desk. What I think was most disturbing about these two wards was not so much that they were, literally, so very different -- on the one side the possibility or eventuality of death, the other birth and happiness, although that in itself was very disturbing -- it was that there were always people in the rooms with the mother's who had just had babies, generally with the babies themselves that the mother's were showing off or feeding, and rarely any visiting the patients on my other ward when I was there. I would like to think that I was there at a non-visiting like hour -- I worked from 12:00 - 1:00 -- but considering the vast amount of people in the baby ward, my thinking may be wishful.

I handled it all stoically, either from ignorance of the reality of the situation or because I understood it too well. I really do think it was mostly the latter. At the time, my literary mind was already reeling against the novelistic situation I was placed in. It was like a Dickens novel, being in a situation so opposite in nature, so rife with commentary about the life we live in, its unnaturalness, death, destruction, terror and conversely birth, happiness, community. I treated every patient the same. I was perhaps a little too cheerful with the patients in my first ward. There was a great deal of self-awareness that went on during this time for me. I wanted to contain my smile and moderately upbeat tone as well as hide my youth and health. But I could not do the latter, I could not hide the fact that I was what they were not, and I remained (moderately) cheerful while waiting on them because I figured (or hoped) that it would be more beneficial than containing it, of being in a sense understated and morose out of deference to their condition. I hoped to impart some sort of hope to them just by giving them a smile and a kind word.

There was one woman I never saw again after two weeks of waiting on her. I don't remember saying anything particularly out of the ordinary to her, or she to me, but I was very sad when she was not there the next week. She had a pained look on her face every time I saw her, and short cropped hair, and tubes sticking out of her and machines.

After working the two wards, I had lunch. I was excited about the half-off coupons I was given each day for my meals. They had really good food. And I could choose anything I wanted; they had a large refectory. I ate alone. I did for a time work with a young Muslim boy. He would go on my travels with me to the two wards, but he left after only a few weeks, and I was asked if I felt comfortable doing the two by myself which, enthusiastically independent as I am, I was only too cheerful about.

After lunch I left the main building, walked across a very busy road, to another, smaller building, that was the administration head quarters. I used a card with my picture on it to get in. I was also very excited about the card. I think I worked four hours here. I rather enjoyed it. I was usually given a very menial task to commit, like shoving papers with all sorts of long numerical figures on them into pre-addressed envelopes.

The secretary left after the first month I was there and for some reason the people in the little office thought I could do the job as well as she, and after that every week I arrived to loads of paper to be xeroxed, and people to call about things that I now don't really recall. Vaguely I remember calling about having one of the copiers fixed, a number that was taped indelicately underneath the previous secretary's computer key-board.

My next job, the summer subsequent to Magees, was not so revelatory, by really any means. I got a very inconsequential job at the City Theatre on the South Side of Pittsburgh. Not one of the "upstanding" theatre's that put on award-winning performances -- such theatre's that a year later I would be working in as an usher -- but a well-known sort of grubby avant-garde theatre. In short, they don't put on Harold Pinter or The Lion King. At first I worked in their administrative offices. One day I was asked to re-file one of the female workers filing cabinets. She was gone on vacation. I was to take all the papers in each file and place them in a new file that was not falling apart as hers were, and then alphabetize them by name. I did so, and then the next week I was shuffled off to help the scenic designer. I didn't think anything untoward about the switch. I just thought they didn't have anything else for me to do. The switch was, however, probably prompted by a faux pas on my part. While I was placing the papers in new files, I did not notice in any sort of attentive sense the bits of sticky note papers attached inside the older folders that had, apparently, really important phone numbers on them. I saw them, but didn't think them important, probably due to naivety. And to (slightly) exonerate myself, I was not told anything about them, only to throw away each folder for the new. But the woman who had been on vacation the previous week did not look kindly on me the next.

The scenic designer, who worked behind the theatre in a sort of garage, was not particularly pleased with me, I think, but luckily his grand-daughter, who was a few years older than me, and worked with him in the summer while away from drama school, was. So I didn't actually do any work during this time. Once we hopped into a van and went downtown to a storage area to pick up props needed for one of the shows, but other than that, the girl and I (whose name I don't remember) pretty much just ran about the theatre. She knew everyone who worked there. We sneaked up into one of the theatre's (the whole building comprised of several) and watched as some of the men put a scene together. I usually had lunch at a shoppe next door that sold the most delicious (heart-burn inducing) cheese fries. I must admit, I wasn't terribly pleased to have this girl around me and may not have been very kind to her. She tried once to join me for lunch and I was a bit rude. I was, as I am still rather now, a bit of a gothic girl.

Another time I went with one of the girls who was then my age now to various places around the city to ask shoppes to put ads of upcoming plays in their store windows. I was left to myself to do this. The girl went one way, I another. I don't think I actually went into any of the shoppes in the end, but just wandered around and then told the girl later that none of them would take one.

The next summer I did not work.

The following I got a job through my school. One of the teachers had a friend who worked as a secretary in a law office. I was to work "downtown." I had just started working downtown for the theatres on the weekend, but now I would have to take the bus by myself, instead of getting a ride from my folks. I relished it! I was working in a law office and at theatre's in the city. My idealistic self rejoiced.

I worked in a large building caty-corner to the large, ancient looking court house. Downstairs was a cafe and a shop for trinkets. A man worked the elevators. Every time I got off the elevator I could smell the tabacco from the pipe of the man who would eventually ask me to help him. The secretary didn't have much for me to do, so one of the lawyers out of the two that she worked for saw me one day -- nearly impossible not; the room that he and another lawyer worked in was very small, containing only their two small offices, a moderately sized "discussion room" and the front desk where the secretary sat -- and asked me to do an errand for him. I did not know downtown at all. I did not know where anything was, that is. As with most things, my memories of just exactly what I was to do is hazy, but I do remember I had to go to a building some ways away from the office and present a piece of paper to someone there who would then give me something that I was to give to my boss. I do remember it was not law-related. It had nothing to do with a case. I think, it had to do with his cell-phone bill. He gave me vague directions. I eventually found it by roaming about for a bit. I took longer than he thought I should have to get back, he told me. I told him that it took me a while to find the place and he told me (the only thing I remember him telling me): "It doesn't matter how you got there just that you eventually did."

Now you're not going to believe me. You will say that I am being romantic. You will say my literary mind is playing with my memory, but I thought so then and still do now, that this man came out of a Dickens novel. In fact, I only last year correctly placed him when I saw the new adaptation of BLEAK HOUSE. This man is Mr. Tulkinhorn!

His room, unlike his much younger partner situated next to him, was a complete mess. Papers strewn everywhere. During the entire time I was there, an empty liter of pepsi was situated half underneath his desk, on top of papers and files, probably at some point fell off his desk which, as can be assumed, was in an equal state of disrepair. The secretary, who had been so for about ninety-nine years, and who consequently was on a personal footing with the lawyer who also had been in the same building for ninety-nine years, would sometimes walk into his office while he was out and pick up a few of the papers. I don't know why the empty pepsi bottle was so neglected.

The best thing I can say about the secretary is that she is a chav. Fun but not intelligent. Short-hand and copying a paper is her only accomplishments. Par for the course, I heard a lot about her boyfriend at the time, who was much older and still married, and had kids.

The lawyer, Mr. Salamon, asked me to do more and more. He worked primarily with housing disputes. One of the cases he was then working on involved two sisters who were fighting over one of their deceased relatives houses. I spent more time in the deeds office in the County Office Building then I did anywhere else. I became an investigator. I would be given details of information he wanted and then have to find it, among very old, very heavy books with once white, but now yellow coloured paper. Usually I had to find history about a particular house, like who owned the home years and years before, sometimes well back into the nineteenth-century. First, I had to go to a computer to find the book that would have the information in it. I was not told by Mr. Salamon how to do this. I think he delighted in discovering how I would figure it out. He later called me a genius -- that no girl my own age -- and he did mark out "girl" -- could have done what I did on what little instruction he gave me. Then I somehow used the information on the computer to find the book (I can't now remember exactly how that went) and then looked through the book for the information. It was never so clear what I was looking for or, if it was, the information in the book was not so clear. I would go through pages and pages (the papers as large as the length of my hand to my shoulder) looking for information I didn't even comprehend. But somehow I always managed to bring back the right information, usually a facsimile of the page that I received by copying down the book information and page numbers, that I then presented to one of the clerks who, once I gave him a blank check from my lawyer, would print out for me.

I was only to happy to get the secretary's lunch. She asked me almost every day, and every day she would very kindly ask me if it was all right. Usually it was to go to Brueggers for a bagel sandwich. Once a week she would give me extra money so I could get myself something.

She also taught me how to play gin. It was a rainy Friday. Salamon was not in. We both had nothing to do, so she told me that Salamon and her sometimes played cards on days like this, and did I know gin? I didn't, and felt ashamed. She told me it was the easiest thing to learn and would I want to? Having nothing else to do, I said yes. I wasn't particularly pleased to be learning something I didn't know. But I realized it was easy and fun, and I got the handle of it quickly, and we played the whole afternoon.

The other lawyer in the room did not like me. He was as different to Salamon as could be, except that they were both Jewish. The other lawyer (so he shall be called, because I do not remember his name) has a wife and children and his room was very neat indeed, with plush blue carpeting, a window that looks out over the river, and a desk spotless with pictures of his family. He did not like me because I occupied the conference room, which he thought was silly because it was not designed to be a young girls mock-office (where generally I read when I was not needed -- I remember in particular being fascinated by Alan de Botton's The Art of Travel), but it was a place to have clients when they were not in your office which -- was never. The other lawyer never used the room. He could have. Salamon told him that if at any time he needed the room I would be kicked out forthwith. He never did need it, but showed his protest against my habitation there by coming in one day while I was reading, shuffling around some lawyer books that I had previously been asked to look through for information, and using the phone to call a client -- although, needless to remark, he had a phone in his office.

My lawyer, Mr. Salamon, was most markedly like Mr. Tuilkinhorn in BLEAK HOUSE primarily because, like the former lawyer, he did have a man who came to him every so often asking for money. Now I know this because Mr. Salamon never closed the door to his room and I am very curious. He was like Mr. Smallweed in every way. Dirty with a lower-class accent. I later saw him hanging out in Lawrenceville in the not-so-well area with some other people of his ilk. I imagine that is how he spends most days. Well, it must be that my lawyer and this man had some sort of deal, of what complications I never did discover. But he came every other week or so to have a conference with my lawyer, the latter of whom did bespeak of money problems, although once he pulled out a few 100 dollar bills in front of me, in an entirely showy manner.

The last month I was there I worked on a case with my lawyer. What I did, really, was show up at the courthouse when I was told and sit next to him at the left front desk (the opposition sitting at the right) and gave him a few papers when he indicated while he was questioning witnesses or addressing the judge. This was a small case; it did not have a jury. It was a civil case. He didn't win or lose at the end. Like the case in BLEAK HOUSE, nothing was resolved, and another court date for the future was set.

Once, very early on in his taking me up, he asked me to walk with him to the court house, talking to other lawyers that he ran into on the way, whom he also introduced me to. We at first talked to a judge about one of his cases. After, I was shown two boxes along one of the corridors where lawyers put papers to say that they want such and such a case to be heard the following week. I would later be sent to place papers in these boxes throughout my time with him. We were walking along the corridor to go to a very small courtroom. When we sat down he told me that he was there to be heard regarding his divorce, one that had been going on for some time. He was waiting to be given a court date. The judge called his name and he went up to the bench to be given some such paper and then we left.

Fragments of other things occur to me. Like when I was told to go to a building so tall that it had literally 100 or more floors going all the way up. Once again, I was to find information. He had to give me his i.d. to present at the front desk and I had to present mine as well. I was given a piece of sticky paper to place on myself, that had the date and floor I was going to. It was something like the 70th floor. The elevator, of course, went really fast; I was delighted. Once the door opened, I put my purse on a conveyor belt and walked through an arching medal detector. Then had myself wanded by a security guard. Whatever information I was there to find -- that required me logging onto a computer -- I could not. Mr. Salamon told me, I think truthfully, that he didn't think the information was there, but that he had to check. The next time I went there was to pick up a large amount of boxes with files in them that I had to take from the building in a little -- well, I don't know what it is; mechanical things are lost on me -- but it essentially carried the papers on wheels. It was a rather long walk, and I was pretty tired by the end of it.

Mr. Salamon is an old man. At the time he was probably in his 60's. He has a bit of a hunch so that he can not stand up straight. He is generally jovial. He was never mean to me, but watching him in court, I saw that he could be, and I would even say that some of it was natural, not purely contrived for effect. He told me once that he had studied English literature and as he did not want to teach, he so decided to study law. He was always very nice to me. I think he liked me well enough. One day he came out of his office -- I was sitting with the secretary -- he just started dancing, out of no where, some sort of square dance, and had the secretary get up to join him, and then taught us both a few moves.

The job was only for the summer. At the end of it, Salamon gave me "as much money as I can spare" for my service, even though I was paid through my school for my time there through the summer program. It was a little over 100 dollars. The check did not bounce, as I thought it might.

I did not know what I was going to do after high school, other than go to college at Point Park, and went back to the office the next Spring. Mr. Salamon had told me that I could have a job there after high school, but when I saw him then he told me that he could not afford another assistant. I'm fairly certain now that he was only be nice when he offered it before; that he didn't actually think I would come back.

My senior year of high school I also worked at the Boys and Girls Club after classes, two days a week. I chased after little kids -- 7 to 9 years of age -- and became very close with a young mentally disadvantaged girl. She look and acted like she was 5 but was actually only two years younger than me. No one else cared for her. She was quite annoying. She followed you around everywhere, always seeking attention, and would lie about other kids hitting her, and never did this computer program work that she was to do every day. She became so fond of me that after a while she went to no one else, and the other teachers felt sorry for me, but I really liked her, and got her to do the computer program, although some days it was just impossible. She never had tantrums. I can stand anything in a child but tantrums. But she would lie, something fierce. She would tell me that I had been at the club the day before and did not say anything to her, when in fact I had not been at the club the day before, and never ignored her. She became fixated on this. Every time I saw her she would say the same thing. I only worked at the club two days a week and that Tuesday and Thursday so I was never there any "day before." Finally, I decided to work a little Helen psychology on her. As she was quietly ranting about me not talking to her the day before, I told her that she was lying and that if she kept up saying this then I would not speak to her. She said again, in her staccato way of never really finishing a sentence, that she had seen me yesterday and I had ignored her. So I turned around from her and did not say a word. She tried to pull me around to face her and told me to say something to her. I would not. She continued her former ranting and I continued my silence. As I was not so sure she would, she relented, saying, "Okay. Okay. I will not, I will not...say that anymore." And she did not that day. Any time she brought it up again, I would resume my silence and after a while she would stop it, I always explaining to her afterwards that I was not there the day previous, that in fact I would never ignore her, and then quickly changed the topic to something else.

She also had a great need to say very bleak things about her life. A kid at school was teasing her; her mother was mean to her. I was not sure if any of it was true, as very often she would say a kid at the club had just hit her moments ago when I had been there and saw no such thing occur. So in like fashion to what I did previously, I enacted a bit of, I suppose you would call it, reverse psychology. I told her that she could tell me anything bad that had happened to her, but only if first she told me three good things that had happened to her from when I last saw her. Every day she had something bad to tell me and wanted desperately to tell me, jumping up and down sometimes, and I reminded her of our agreement, and she would sigh like a little girl and say, "okay," and then would proceed to tell me three good things, which was quite hard for her at first. Perhaps she didn't know what good things were, or what was pleasurable to her, so that often I would have to say, "Did you have something tasty for dinner last night?" and she would immediately get excited and say something like, "We had pizza!" And, "Did you like that," and she would nod. And really, after saying whatever three things she liked -- which after a while she was able to come up with on her own -- she had forgotten the bad things, which probably were made up things, that she was going to tell me.

I did not tell her I was leaving. I thought that would be best, but now I'm not so sure. I hope, however, that she is doing well where she is, and that she will lead a very rewarding life.

My exciting jobs -- or, at least, interesting jobs, ended in high school. After that I went to college and worked in the library there, to only transfer to one of the branches of the Pittsburgh library a year later, first as a page and then as a clerk. That job, which I had for roughly four years, had with it some interesting things. I met some great people, some of whom are still my friends, and learned a few more things about human nature. But it somehow doesn't -- at least yet -- rank with my innocent years that preceded, and the jobs I had during that time.