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Friday, July 13, 2012

7-12-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #145 (The Washington Squares - Sidebar about Syd Straw & another Starter Job. . . )


Anyway, one day, Syd Straw tells me she has a part time “day” job that she really isn’t into. “Hey honey” -- she called everyone honey, sofar as I could tell -- “I’m working for this architect guy who started a temp agency, in the cable building?”

Yeah? I was all ears, as I had a constant need to supplement my income, and after Mickey died at One U. in May 1983, the job there started to really suck. Naturally, we were all in mourning but that puts a pall on business, you might say.

“Yeah, and he needs somebody to come in, answer phones, and help with his filing and stuff.”

Sure, I’ve done that kind of work, I said, and I type like a demon (probably around 40 wpm but not bad for a musician in her 20’s back then). I didn’t mind office work because I knew I had other stuff going for me & so as a rule I didn’t hate my “day jobs.”

So, Syd Straw introduced me to David M., who ran a company that he started called Consulting for Architects (CFA). An architect himself, DM came upon the brilliant idea of representing/hiring other architects out at a rate twice what he paid them (the usual for a temp agency). I was familiar with the temping world as I’d do that on occasion, too, for a company called Accurate Temporaries downtown in the World Trade Center.

The cable building was a large, gorgeous hulking antique on the corner of Broadway and Houston street, and many hip businesses rented offices there. Being only a few blocks from my home at Thompson Street between Houston and Prince, it was a no-brainer: of course I’d work for DM at CFA.

Thank you, Syd Straw - or, thank you, Straw woman!

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