9-26-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #209 (“How’m I Doin’?” -- and we tell him, too! -- Part 2)

Much the same way anything interesting and excellent happened for the Washington Squares, Tom Goodkind got us into some improbable and cool situations. Keep in mind, he probably had some help from his wife, Jill, who was in Public Relations and carried her camera around to snap us with all kinds of celebs, including Hollywood types, an up-and-coming Whoopi Goldberg and a well known actor, Robert Duvall. . . . both very nice to us, actually.

At any rate, we had a request one holiday season (’87 or ’88?) to play for Mayor Koch and guests as a party at his home, Gracie Mansion. I was more excited for my mom and Rick’s parents to know we were doing it more than personally, I think. I just hoped we’d play and sing well, and get a nice meal and some $ out of the deal. Really, I have very simple motives -- and I’m not easily impressed. All right, I’m impressed by kindness, magnanimousness, compassion, and fun. I will namedrop if it helps the listener with placing the person, place or thing I’m trying to describe. Face it, most people seem captivated by tales of celebrities, and I hate to disappoint. . .

So, when the Washington Squares played a party for Mayor Koch at Gracie Mansion, we ate well and played well. The salad dressing especially was really excellent, so I asked the chef how to make it and I still whip up a yummy balsamic Dijon vinaigrette based on what we had at Gracie Mansion back in the late ‘80’s.

Shary Flenniken -- Bruce’s wife -- spent some time bending Ed Koch’s ear at the party. Tom was annoyed with her, maybe because he wanted to also talk to hizzoner but didn’t want to impose? Nah, Tom wasn’t that kind of person; I was more prone to worry about making an imposition on people at the wrong place and time. . . 

9-25-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #208 (“How’m I Doin’?” -- and we tell him, too!)

Before New York City was ruled over by mayors the likes of nasty Rudy Giuliani and the current OCD-Napoleonic potentate, Michael Bloomberg, I recall when NYC’s mayor was the suave, waspy John Lindsay. I was a little girl, growing up in Queens, and I remember when Mayor Lindsay visited the Zion Episcopal Church right near our house. At the time, I was in the Girl Scouts; somehow we in Douglaston merited a visit from the city administration (including the comptroller at the time, a young good looking Italian type named Mario Proccacino).

All right, so I shook Mayor John Lindsay’s hand many years ago (Proccacino’s too). Back in the ‘80’s, when the Squares ruled the Village (in our minds!), we had a pretty cool mayor, a colorful guy who we all liked for his sense of humor and amazing resemblance to Frank Perdue (“takes a tough man to make a tender chicken”), Mayor Ed Koch (“takes a tough man to make a tender city?”).

I’m standing next to good ol’ Ed Koch at a Yankees opening day game with Rick Wagner. . . back when we actually could occasionally afford to go (games weren’t too pricey and we had enough disposable income to enjoy ourselves -- or maybe we didn’t know better and spent all we had, that’s probably it!).

Oh all right, it’s not ACTUALLY Ed Koch in the pic with me. . . but a year or two after that, we really WERE in the company of hizzoner Mayor Koch: no lie

9-05-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #200 (Oops! We did it again, take 2. . .)

We played this gig at the Bottom Line one time -- I think it was a benefit for something, maybe AIDS research or World Hunger Year? -- and the Squares took the stage. Now, Tom and Bruce customarily did a little back and forth comedy routine a la the Smothers Brothers or Lenny Bruce, generally leaving me out of the picture because they were quick, the fastball wits. I was the female in the middle who’d look left to right, right to left, and look bemused and mildly tolerant of those “bad boys.”

As you can tell, I, too, have my own brand of fastball wit, but as I’m accustomed to putting it on the page, onstage I tended to not get words out quick enough, and I’d fumble. But THIS one time, I was heard. . .

This was after Bruce made some jokes about Michael Jackson, maybe along the lines of, “How can you can tell it’s bedtime at Michael Jackson’s? When the big hand touches the little hand. . .”

So, In the news at the time was a gory tale of a man who killed his girlfriend and cooked some of her body parts to eat. Ugh. So Tom says onstage, between songs, “So, you hear about this guy who ate his girlfriend?”

Not missing a beat, I jumped right in, “Well, Tom, plenty of guys eat their girlfriends” -- referring to a sexual act, you know, a double entendre. Nervous laughter and a few rather sick guffaws met my bold remark. I thought it was pretty good -- stopped the guys in their tracks for about a minute. They were incredulous that I could have said something so quickly. . . and I wonder what would have happened had Bruce said that instead of me.

Anyway, after the show, our record company voiced mild displeasure at my onstage comment. Never had the guys ever been chastised for their shenanigans, but I thought there was a teensy bit of a double standard at play there. . . cute girls just can’t “play blue,” I guess.

9-04-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #199 (Oops! We did it again. . .)

Now I come to one of the more embarrassing things that happened to the Washington Squares. . . I’ll talk about something I did, first off, and in the next entry, I’ll mention a gaffe performed by our very own lead guitarist and jokester, Bruce Jay Paskow.

I recall playing the Bottom Line one time when the L.A. office of our record company (all three or four of them!) came in to New York to meet with President Danny Goldberg. They came to our show at this rather prestigious former downtown club, where all of the mid-level acts played on tour and some of the bigger acts started out or played “surprise” shows, mostly for the press or bigwigs.

The Bottom Line was run by Allen Pepper, and his business partner, maybe his brother -- who stayed out of the picture and sat upstairs, counting money (so I’m told). They really did stick to “the bottom line” and were notoriously frugal. At any rate and despite all that, seeing bands there was always a treat, and playing there a regular privilege. . .

8-31-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #195 (Schmoozin’ with the Stars, take 2)

(Abbie Hoffman pic by Jill Goodkind)

To continue along those lines -- “Schmoozin’ with the Stars” -- here’s a pic of us with Abbie Hoffman, political and social activist, co-founder of the Yippies. I always liked Abbie because he a young revolutionary who wanted to change America back in the turbulent sixties . He and Jerry Rubin both gained fame as the poster children of The Revolution. Of course, as time progressed, Hoffman kept up the idealism and political convictions along with actions, while Rubin did the practical thing and figured out how to succeed in business. . .

So Abbie came to the village in the eighties (he was living in Pennsylvania?) to get a pet project going, a radio show called “Radio Free USA” for which he wanted the Squares to work on a theme song, with him. We met in a pizza place on the corner of MacDougal and West Third, and we also met at my apartment, I believe. Abbie was really likable, and it was sad when he died in New Hope, Pennsylvania (ironically) of a suicide in 1989, at the age of 52.

At any rate, I remember how the lyric started out: “You say there’s no hope left and you’ve gotta go straight. . . “ and then the build into the chorus: “It’s time to start a master plan (cool lick a la the Stones’ “Satisfaction” leading up to the tag chorus) Radio Free U S A. . . “   

8-20-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #184 (Working Temp in NYC: Questioning the temp employment agency worker’s choice)

On the employer/company level, how practical was that, hiring a handful of us temp workers to assemble annual reports for a week? That must have added up, along with paying overtime for god-knows-what and sending workers home after 9 PM in limousine car services.

Ah, the eighties were times for the luxe life, indeed -- even for the worker bees. No wonder Reagan was so popular. . . people thought he brought them wealth. To be kind, I thought that whole mindset was impracticable, though. . . it didn’t work, in the end, just like Lehman Brothers.

Anyway, as previously mentioned, office temps never got a raise or a bonus, and most wages stayed frozen at eighties rates well into the post Y2K world.

That is why there aren’t career temps, workers who just do temp work, I guess. For me, it was a viable solution to a creative life: I’d work in offices when I wasn’t on the road, or work in offices when I was trying to figure out my next creative move (in words and/or music).

I won’t keep on ranting here, but in a world where the price of everything else keeps going up and up except worker wages (the lowly temps!), how is that right? (If you call that Capitalism, I call it screwed up. . .)

I always was proud to sing about worker’s rights in the Washington Squares in the eighties because I was living that dichotomy, and my firsthand experience gave me added passion. Who better to care for the worker than a sister worker with a conscience and a voice?

Of course, I worked at my creative work and prayed for it to “take off” so I could stop worrying about the rent etc. But as you know, God works in mysterious ways -- as the stories in this blog surely attest.

8-19-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #183 (Working Temp in NYC: Questioning the conscience of the temp employment agency behemoths)

The temporary employment agency business must have grown exponentially from the seventies to the nineties. More and more of them popped up, along with specialty temp firms (“consulting” firms for engineers, architects, graphic artists, even lawyers). At this point, in 2012, I know in the past five years they’ve probably taken a beating due to the recession, but temporary worker agencies remain viable businesses because they’re a practical solution to a hiring problem (“how do we get projects done with a finite beginning and end without using other valuable employee hours?”), or an economic solution to permanent hiring (“how can we get away with not paying any benefits -- and make a big cost savings? -- which means less administrative work as well.”).

And sometimes, in the temp-to-perm world, the companies just want to try out a few potential employees on a probationary basis, and hiring a temp is a safe enough alternative (and somebody else checks out/vets that potential candidate for a permanent job).

As it was, back in the ‘80’s, a lowly office temp like me was paid $15 an hour. The temp agencies charged over $30 to the companies. Knowing the workings of capitalism, I didn’t mind that, so much, but here’s what got to me when I realized it had happened: temp wages froze. Once I got up to the $16 per hour rate in the nineties, it never went higher. Over thirty years, I worked intermittently in the temporary employment field as a high level admin (with a 60 wpm typing speed and thorough knowledge of MS Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and not gotten an hourly wage above $16 p.h.

That meant: no raise, ever. It also meant that wages didn’t keep in line with cost of living increases. . . So, rents would rise along with the price of milk, bread, cereal, fruit, meat etc.-- and the $16 per hour wage would remain. I don’t know how anybody could keep living that way, paying bills and trying to save for a home, a car, a baby, a rainy day. . . not even thinking about saving for retirement on a temp’s salary!

8-17-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #181 (Working Temp in NYC: Faxing Documents for The Man, Part 2)

“A hundred twenty pages?!” The admin in the receiving office scoffed. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. They need it faxed? They can’t just get it mailed?”

I checked back with my exasperated temp boss. “If I wanted it mailed, I’d have said to mail the sucker. Just fax it,” he ordered, with a dismissing wave of his pudgy, manicured hand.

I called back the other assistant. “Yup, he definitely wants to fax it to your office. Is that all right? Is this a good time?”

The other assistant groaned, “That’ll keep all the other faxes from coming in, so I’ll give you another fax number to send to. And, I have to check if we have enough fax paper. Once you start sending, that will take hours. . .”

I groaned sympathetically back with the other assistant. At any rate, us two assistants watched over our respective fax modems like mother birds watching their eggs hatch. . .  we had to make sure the transmission was successful, each and every page of the 120 pages. . . because each page took about a minute, and then occasional machine jams occurred, so in the end, that damn fax took almost three hours to send.

The next day, my temp boss said, “That document you faxed yesterday? Trash it. We’re doing a new draft.”

That was one of those times, as a temp, I was fit to be bound and gagged. How much more wasteful and non-insightful could those bosses be? Well, look at the corporate history of one of many big business failures, like Lehman Brothers. . .

8-14-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #178 (Working Temp in NYC: Personal Errands for The Man)

Another thing about me, I love doing anything that’s uncommon or not part of the plan at work because I like change. I also like to think that life isn’t boring, and when you get out of the same ol’ same ol’, boredom disappears - poof! -- like a cockroach when you turn on the lights.

As it happened, some bosses had interesting requests as far as errands. A few asked if I wouldn’t mind picking up their lunch orders if I was going out -- that was well and fine. One or two asked if I could fetch their shirts from the cleaner’s down the street. That was cool, too.

The most interesting errand -- since this was pre-Ticketmaster -- was to pick up some concert tickets for my groovy divorced older guy boss, Merv Weiner, who was a Sr. VP in M&A at Bristol Myers-Squibb. The concert:  Leonard Cohen Live! at the Felt Forum. Everybody Knows he’s my man and so, I was more than happy to go in person to get tix for Merv because I also picked some up for my boyfriend and me.

Of course, I’d not have been as ecstatic if he asked me to get tickets for Billy Joel or somebody I loathed. . .but the trip outside the office to do just about anything other than work at a desk between 9 and 5 was kinda heavenly.

So, thank you, Merv -- and thanks, Len, for an awesome concert way back when at the Felt Forum. That was where I bumped into Allen Ginsberg and discussed our favorite songs off Cohen’s I’m Your Man album. He said to me, “I like that Manhattan song. And how’s Tommy (Goodkind -- from the Squares) doing?”!

8-13-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #177 (Working Temp in NYC: “Take a memo, please” and Speed Typing for The Man)

Because I have a great love of language and can visualize words on a page while people are speaking, I am an exceptional at transcriber. And because I had plentiful experience as a freelance journalist, writing up interviews from mostly musicians and celebrities, I also had a lot of transcribing under my belt.

As a journalist, my transcribing tools weren’t as highly functional as in an office where they had the almighty DictaPhone machine. It was like a tape player but had a foot pedal attachment with a play, rewind, and fast forward function. You could also adjust the speed on your DictaPhone console so that it played at a good rhythm that you could type as fast or slow as your speed and keep up with the words.

A note on my typing speed: For years, I couldn’t get up to 45 wpm. The better, higher paying hourly jobs went to those who typed 55 wpm and over, so that was an obstacle I needed to surmount. I practiced very hard for a few weeks, then called Accurate about retesting my typing speed.

Because Denise had a soft spot for brash, funny little me, I re-tested and just made it: 56 wpm. My rate increased by $2 per hour! Oh boy, I was on my way to riches, then!

Anyway, when the bosses wanted me to “Take a letter,” I’d explain that I didn’t know shorthand but could make do with a fast longhand. I’d scribble away on a steno pad, then rush to the typewriter to type what the boss had just dictated relying on scribbled phrases and memory. After a few edits back and forth, the letters could be typed in final draft, on company stationery, signed, Xeroxed for the files, and sent. Whew!  

On the days where I had to mostly take dictation, transcribe, and write . . . as the saying goes, “I’d be laughing. . .” It was something I was really good at, and don’t we love feeling good about what we do well?

8-12-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #176 (Working Temp in NYC: Setting Up Meetings for The Man)

 So, other than answering the assistant’s phone on their desk outside the boss’s door in the course of a day and sometimes making all kinds of personal calls for the boss, the killer thing would be: setting up meetings.

Because this was the pre-email environment, setting up meetings for me meant taking a deep breath (even though I’m quite good, even sometimes brilliant at it, I have a slight phone phobia) and dialing the extensions.

“Hello, Mr. Whoosit’s office? I’m filling in for Mr. Dutcher’s secretary and he was wondering about setting up a meeting with Mr. Whoosit on August 17? (pause) Oh. Mr. Whoosit’s out of town then. Well, let me get back to you with some other dates. Thank you.”

This kind of thing would happen many times, the invitee not being available and a lot of back and forth, phoning. Aaargh!

Until I got the hang of it, coordinating meeting dates and times was a killer. You had to have multiple possibilities in order to nail one date and time down, and then consider the seniority of the invitees and prioritize. You had to have an org chart for that because usually the boss was too busy to ask. And usually at some point in the process when you reported back to the boss about who was in and who couldn’t come, you’d be yelled at, anyway.

When you finally made all the calls and nailed down the attendees, then you had to find a room for the meeting. I’d rely on other “office gals” for help, regular employees who knew the ropes and rooms.

Setting up meetings was never fun, always work, always stressful. Later on, with computers and emailing, it got better, but still. . . I found that experience useful when I had to set up band rehearsal schedules, or plan a big family gathering.

On the days where I had to set up meetings and it didn’t go well I would NOT laugh, inwardly, that they paid me to work. . . and I’d wonder why anybody would want to work full time, permanently, in an office. Ugh.

8-11-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #175 (Working Temp in NYC: Phoning Home for The Man)

I previously described a nightmarish job, working reception. Well, since most of my temp jobs were for more general office work, it didn’t matter about the phones as much. I grew a mounting respect for receptionists who had to handle so much at one time.

Most jobs, the phones I had to answer were just one of two buttons on an assistant’s phone on their desk outside the boss’s door. And that was a piece of cake, as it’s easier to keep track of a couple of lines/buttons than a few dozen. So today, let’s explore another one of the clerical/secretarial tasks in more thrilling detail. Today’s task: 2. Making phone calls for the bosses.

Hmm. Wouldn’t you think that answering the phone would be the thing we were exclusively responsible for? Ah, not so. In the old days of secretaries, they’d be asked to do any number of multitasks. That would include personal stuff for bosses, even if you were filling in for their assistant. It actually made me kind of laugh -- though I didn’t dare chuckle aloud.

One guy, with Shearson Lehman (before they became Lehman Brothers), had a great name: Dodge Dutcher. I worked for him for a week or two, and I always marveled at how little he seemed to do. Maybe it was because it was the summer? Anyway, he probably had a very patient assistant because quite soon he stared talking away to me -- not that he wanted me to talk, just listen -- and he had a lot of personal agendas.

He’d hand me a list of people to call/things to do every day. Being a hired gun, it was all well and fine to me -- because, with my sense of humor, it was constantly amusing to be around somebody in such a high place with such energy and such apparent ability to run his life AND a business. Then again, my work for him rarely had anything to do with business.

Dodge Dutcher had me call his dry cleaner’s; his Episcopal Church office; his travel agent (making travel arrangements was part of many jobs -- and this was when you called the agent and THEY did all the work that computers now do); his mother (!); old college friends; and last but not least, his wife (who he angrily called at one point “A World Class Bitch”).

He was mad at her all the time, so his assistant had to phone her with his plans. “Ah, Mrs. Dutcher? This is Lauren, Mr. Dutcher’s temporary secretary? Uh, he was hoping to have dinner with you and the Wests at the club on the 21^st, at 7?”  I felt truly lame, having to call the boss’s wife, but I supposed that DD’s ol’ secretary/assistant was used to making such calls.

Thank the heavens for the way things have changed, since: now people call and text their friends and relations from work on personal phones in their pockets. Admin Assistants (not secretaries) now have other busy work that doesn’t include making awkward cold calls of a personal nature for the bosses. . . or at least, not that I know of (say something if you have a job where you have to do that kind of thing, still)!

8-10-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #174 (Working Temp in NYC: Answering Phones/Reception)

So today, let’s explore one of the clerical/secretarial tasks in more thrilling detail. Let’s start with answering phones/reception. Being in the age of the push button reception phone system -- no longer patching in the cords like you see on old movies with phone operators -- in some places, being temporary receptionist was almost a breeze.

But if the large phone console on the reception desk was poorly marked with names or at all dysfunctional (sometimes buttons stuck or there were broken connections wired internally), beware.

Such a thing happened at a small company I once worked for in midtown, Quantum Science Corporation. I took the receptionist temp job because that was all that was available on that particular day and even though it paid a few bucks per hour less, I was feeling industrious and needed the work.

My temperament wasn’t ideally suited to working a busy reception desk, though -- I got easily flustered and when the heat was on I was brusque with some callers, which I instantly regretted but there, it happened, harm was done. Oh well. I never said I specialized in reception but could be a pinch player.

“Hello, good morning, Quantum Science Corporation, how may I help you?”

“Looking for Mister Coodleschnook.”

“Ah, um, just a minute.” I’d put the caller on hold and try to find that button and the instructions on how to transfer the call (each phone console was slightly different each place you went, it seemed). Then I’d go to the phone list which was key to what extensions went to which employee ‘cause the phone consoles weren’t always marked accurately.

“I’m back, thanks for holding, transferring to Mister Coodleschnook,” I’d say, and deftly make the transfer. Well, on a couple of calls, the transfer button stuck so they didn’t go through, and I had a few irate callbacks.

Then, in the middle of all that mishigas, one of the queen bees of the office sashays by and tells me what a crappy job I’m doing on reception, wondering aloud where they get the awful temps from. Of course I tried to bite my tongue, but being the type A communicator, I tried to explain to her that the list wasn’t updated, the buttons were sticking etc.

Frankly, my dear, she didn’t give a damn.

At any rate, if that was the nightmare scenario, there were better ones, too.

8-09-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #173 (Working Temp in NYC, Getting the jobs and NOT Calling In Sick)

In a funny way, sitting there sort of felt like being in a police line up -- only our crime was to be an office temp for hire. Waiting there in the lineup, most of the workers preferred not to make eye contact or talk to anybody, but there was the occasional extrovert who’d attempt to reach out and strike up conversations, friendships, even.

To work, I’d bring along a big tote bag with a book or two, a notebook to write in, makeup, hairbrush, sanitary supplies when needed, extra shoes, food. In the era before cell phones, we didn’t tote any such electronic devices around (how the hell did we live or do anything before them? Blows my mind!).

Sometimes -- because I lived south of Houston Street and because I earned a good reputation as a reliable worker who NEVER called in sick (through fifteen years of temping it’s true: I did NOT call in sick, ever) -- Denise at Accurate would say it was OK for me to just call in to the office to see about work and not wait around, which I found dispiriting and kind of hated doing.

But otherwise, when they would change the rules back to playing the waiting room game again, I’d be there with my comrades-in-temps, between assignments, sitting there patiently (or not), waiting for a job in the front Accurate office (then located on the 21^st floor, 2 WTC in the World Trade Center before it fell in 2001).

There was a back office with two or three desks where Denise and the counselors received their phonecalls from the firms, probably a 10 by 12 -foot room pretty crammed up with people and furniture (like an old sweat shop).

But us worker bees waited in the front office, a 12 by 15 foot- room if that, occupied by a receptionist desk, a copier, a fax machine, two typewriter desks (for testing applicants on their typing speed and accuracy), and about eight chairs in an L formation to the left of the door, in the corner.

In one of those chairs, waiting around for work one December, I started writing my first Christmas song, “Xmas Wish List,” which I still sing in December when the mood calls for a rockin’ Christmas song. The chorus goes, “Since you’ve been asking/I guess I’ll tell you/How ‘bout a blender, candles and a cat suit?/Imported Olives, purple leather gloves/and a sweetheart who’ll love me, too?”

8-08-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #172 (Working Temp in NYC, Getting the jobs)

All right. But before we describe those many wonderful clerical/secretarial tasks mentioned in the previous post, a few words about actually GETTING the work (in the pre-computer age):

First of all, I had to call around to find a temp agency that I could work with, a place that would appreciate and utilize my talents, experience, and work ethic. That wound up being Accurate Temporaries in downtown NYC. I had to go there, dress nice, interview, register, take a typing test. Once in, I was pretty much on (unspoken) probation. But then, once I started and completed about five assignments, the people in the temp office actually started remembering my name, my face.

So, to get the work, I’d call the office. For example:

“Hello, Accurate. This is Lauren Agnelli. Are there any jobs I could fill for you from now through August 31^st?”  Or I’d also ask, “Is Denise available for a minute?”  Denise was one of the counselors and the office manager and I liked her very down-to-earth, Working Girl manner, accent, and directness. 

Denise was tall, big boned, with hazel eyes and dark, straight hair that was longish and in a kind of flip. She was an attractive woman who was only about five years older than me, I thought. Then again, we might have been the same age, but as a very responsible office manager with the power to hire and fire, she seemed somehow older. I have to thank her time and again for keeping me working through those crazy eighties and even nuttier nineties.

But rather than calling on the phone, Accurate Temporaries preferred for their temps to actually wait around in the office and sit on chairs against the wall, huddled next to each other. That way, when the call came in for a temp worker, Accurate could just give one of the waiting workers the nod, scrawl down the information on a piece of paper, and send them out to work right away.

Of course, some people never got called to work, so those unlucky ones waited around for two, three hours in the office, then went home, empty handed and heavy hearted. . .

8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, going beyond style. . .)

8-06-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #170 (Yuppie Culture in NYC, beyond style. . .)

Looking back, it would seem that yuppie fashion wasn’t meant to be sexy because that might threaten the balance of power and the status quo because, as a wise person was known to say, “Women have half the money is this world, and all the pussy.” Translated: if sex is power, and money is a given, the sex can be withheld as a bartering chip (a la Lysistrata) -- so sex IS the true power.

But, Power (with a capital P) always was and is sexy and so, the powerful players in the yuppie world didn’t have to dress sexily, no sirree. At times I’d look at outfits some of the women in offices wore and thought them quite deplorable. . . but then again, there will always be those who can’t help but choose unflattering clothes. Their talents are to be found elsewhere, in other ways. . . so who am I to talk?

I always strove to dress in very classic, unexciting ways, with preppy blouses or sweaters, jackets, skirts and shoes. . . I really liked a pair of 2-inch heeled loafers that I had, and classic black pumps with no more than 1 ½ or 2-inch heels. My hair was always in some sort of medium-length pageboy, as I feel most comfortable with hair that’s non-attention getting. Maybe it was because I had to get work in places where they needed people to not stand out and look sort of bland. Sure, I can play that part: bland girl in a glam office.

But then again, even though these palaces of power were well heeled, places where I worked weren’t in glamour fields: they were mostly investment firms (Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs), some architecture offices, and the large pharmaceutical firm, Bristol Myers-Squibb. I worked uptown and down, but preferred downtown.

The World Trade Centers -- and World Financial Center -- were cool places to be working in the ‘80’s. In the proximity of Wall Street and all that downtown Manhattan history, I couldn’t help but feel the excitement in the streets and on the subway.

But the things I had to do in most of these offices were so easy I used to laugh, inwardly, that they paid me to work. . . 

8-01-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #165 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 3). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

Former Yippie leader, Jerry Rubin, morphed from being a '60's idealist to an '80's capitalist, starting a business networking group in 1982. Newspaper columnist Bob Greene wrote an article about Rubin and called it "From Yippie to Yuppie." Even in the pre-internet days, this, of course, did not escape our notice; Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were very big in our eyes as radical type people who also wanted political change in the world.

The fact that the Yuppies as a rule weren't concerned about others who weren't just like them -- who weren't like the rich democrats who had a social conscience -- really irked us. Say what you will about the envy factor on our parts: we at least were working with a social conscience and cared about the have-nots. That whole trickle-down economic theory nonsense sounded ridiculous to us, and we really were hoping that there WOULD be a "New Generation" of people and leaders who cared about all of us, the Yuppies as well as the Poverty Jet Setters, the down-and-out and broken spirited who needed a little hand up as well as the others who already had it all. . . 

One of my yuppie friends who really did care about me was my boyfriend RIck's friend, Kris S. A Business major from King's College in PA (graduated '83), Kris moved to Manhattan with his girlfriend, MaryAnn (or moved with Rick, then MaryAnn joined him). 

Kris had the merriest soul, the best laugh, and a very lovely way with people. He was kind of silly at times, but young -- and one of three brothers: Kim, Kris, and Kyle. Of the three, he was the middle son, and the destined Yuppie. Kris didn't talk about it, but you could tell he was ambitious and wanted to make a mark on the world. He had a job at Goldman Sachs whom he called, "Golden Socks" with a peal of laughter. Sometimes Kris would meet us after work -- he worked in the downtown, Wall Street area. 

One night, we were talking about the newest thing in offices: word processing. The almighty IBM Selectric Typewriter was on its way OUT, forever. Kris said to me, "Lauren, we have computers and word processing at work. I could get you in afterhours* and you could learn it. . . want to?"

(Almost) always say yes! That's the way I live, so of course, I jumped at the chance to learn some MultiMAte on my own. Kris set up a few nights when he was working late, called me up, and invited me down to work on learning word processing so that I would be worth more to my temp agency. . .

* After Hours was also the title of a very funny 1985 Scorcese black comedy movie with Griffin Dunne as a young word processor in downtown Manhattan who went on a ridiculous but scary adventure one night, in Soho. . . almost like life imitating art for me because, except that I was a female, that movie could have been about a nutty night on the town that happened to me. . . 

7-31-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #164 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 2). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

Well, the Yuppie explosion happened, around 1984. Living and working in NYC, being of that age, I definitely had some Yuppie friends -- who were "forgiven" their status and ambitions because they were nice, fun, helpful, generous people. My boyfriend at the time, Rick, had a couple of friends from PA who moved to NYC about the same time as he (early '80's) and they wanted to "make it" -- as the Washington Squares did -- and be successes.

I must admit, I did feel some envy and regret that I wasn't able to also be a respected professional -- which of course those white collar professionals in the offices of power were -- and I wanted to have money, but on my terms. And sure, part of me would love to be rich because that would mean different kinds of worries. . . and very likely I'd feel more respected in life.

Respect is so important to me. . . I do feel I respect myself, and respect others. But when I don't feel it, my anger swells and the tears (privately) come. A lot of the "boho hipsters" that I hung with (including the Squares) had a grudging admiration for Yuppies, but wanted them to show us some respect, too. When we did a good show with a big crowd, or when we were nominated for a Grammy, we felt more universal respect. 

Back to Yuppies on Wikipedia:  "Author and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson has written:

Yuppism... is not definable entirely by income or class. Rather, it is a late-20th-century cultural phenomenon of self-absorbed young professionals, earning good pay, enjoying the cultural attractions of sophisticated urban life and thought, and generally out of touch with, indeed antithetical to, most of the challenges and concerns of a far less well-off and more parochial Middle America. For the yuppie male a well-paying job in law, finance, academia, or consulting in a cultural hub, hip fashion, cool appearance, studied poise, elite education, proper recreation and fitness, and general proximity to liberal-thinking elites, especially of the more rarefied sort in the arts, are the mark of a real man.^[5]"

7-30-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #163 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 1). . .

** FLASH to loyal readers: I'm on the road again now so it's been difficult to keep up with the blogs, but here we are again!  I'll fire off another few & hope it'll keep you in good stead . . . **

So, after a few weeks, we Squares got back home from the Beach Boys tour with added pride that we did well on a national tour -- even if it was a secondary market leg. Yah! Thanks again to that young agent who booked us on it. . . turned out when we signed with an agent the following year, however, it was with a middle aged agent out of Chicago who booked Koko Taylor, among other artists. . . respected acts, but blues. Tom Goodkind had his reasons for going with the agent he did, so we just went with it.

I wasn't always happy with decisions made for the band without my involvement/consent, but I guess real life isn't like school, and a democracy isn't necessarily what you get when you grow up and live "real life." But hey, I guess it could have been worse. . . I could have ended up workin' for "the man."  

The 1980's were an interesting time in the world. . . the time when "Yuppies" became prominent as a socio-cultural force to be reckoned with. Young Urban Professionals, or Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals, the Yuppies were people who we might have walked along the streets with, elbow to elbow, riding the same subways, day-dreaming some of the same dreams while straphanging to their day jobs. Yuppies seemed to run certain aspects of NYC, much to our rue. As much as we'd like to be invited to their parties to drink and eat for free and mingle for other reasons, our philosophies and ideologies were pretty much opposed -- as were our politics (us = lefties & them = rightwingers). 

Economically, Yuppies were the upper middle class or upper class white collar workers in their 20s and 30s. By age  40, it's all over, of course. . . but as we Squares were in our late 20s and early 30s, we sensed an interesting rivalry. To my way of thinking at the time, those who were Yuppies (or yupsters, as I'd quip) strove to have it all, not caring about how it affected others, or if they sold their souls for it. Politically, right wing Reagan Republicans ruled the Yuppie party, and we weren't having any of it (unless we could be liggers at the party).

From Wikipedia (Yuppie on Wikipedia):  "Yuppies are mocked for their conspicuous personal consumption and hunger for social status among their peers. Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank, author of Luxury Fever, has remarked, "When people were denouncing yuppies, they had considerably lower incomes than yuppies, so the things yuppies spent their money on seemed frivolous and unnecessary from their vantage point."^[4] Pro-skateboarder and businessman Tony Hawk has said that yuppies give "us visions of bright V-neck sweaters with collars underneath, and all that was vile in the eighties", and he has also remarked that a "bitchin’ tattoo cannot hide your inner desire to be Donald Trump."^[7]"