9-11-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #206 (Remembering 9/11 on the 11th Anniversary)

(The following was written last year, for East Haddam patch.com
the original patch.com article  -- below photo of me was taken around 2002)

Horror, awe, and curiosity motivated me that gorgeous late summer’s day. I can’t say it was the smartest adventure ever, but circumstances compelled me.

In 2001, I was living in downtown Manhattan and working uptown – at a media planning company in Worldwide Plaza, at 8^th Avenue and 50^th Street. When the first plane hit the World Trade Towers I was underground, riding the “E” train subway.

I didn’t know what happened until I was at my administrative assistant desk and I saw a swarm of worker bees on the other side of the cubicle farm. Whispers in fearful tones jabbered around me, then—

You know the story.

We were all sent home from work. Bridges, tunnels and subways in Manhattan were shut down, so it left walking home as the only option. Home was four miles, south. My friend, Levi, lived on 47^th and Seventh, so I tried calling on my cell phone but couldn’t get through (jammed signals). In an emergency, you crave the company of friends.

He did answer his apartment doorbell, though, shock on his face.

“I’ve got to walk home,” I said, “Or find somewhere to stay.”

“We have to go there,” murmured Levi – another writer, another glutton for unusual experience, Life full-on.

Intending just to walk with Levi until we reached my home (two neighborhoods north of the World Trade Center), I started walking south with him down the West Side Highway. I’d have been content to watch the disaster on TV at home, but no.

Looming directly in front of us, billowing gray smoke oozed from the flames of the crumbling Twin Towers.

“Unreal,” we muttered. Who could believe this was happening? The most brilliant, cloudless cobalt sky was being smoke-smudged. In my platform sandals and long work dress I wasn’t exactly dressed for hiking, but on we trudged, closer to ground zero.

In a series of zigzag maneuvers, we managed to walk to South Ferry in four hours, then come back up to where we could see the smoldering skeletons of the fallen Twin Towers up close. Gray flakes of burned papers and other debris fluttered down. . . I wrapped a bandanna around my nose and mouth, hoping to block any toxic debris.

Really, what WAS I thinking? Levi didn’t talk much while mulling over the enormity of the situation. I kept thinking of the many temp jobs I’d worked at the World Trade towers during the 1990s. . . all the times I stared out of the windows on the 101^st, 102^nd etc. floors while doing data entry and answering phones.

Finally, close to the Hudson River on the west side, rescue workers spotted us. They practically tackled and threw us onto an ancient tugboat that was waiting for people who genuinely needed rescuing.

We were shipped across the river to Jersey City; eventually found PATH trains to Penn Station in Manhattan; had an argument on the train; went our separate ways. I went home to be with a wiser friend, to cry and pray for the many murdered, innocent souls.

To this day I wonder if I’d have been one of them, in pieces of fluttering gray ash, if I’d taken that office assistant job at AIG on the 102^nd floor of WTC One. . . .

8-21-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #185 (Working Temp in NYC: Back to working for The Man and doing his/her filing. . . )

Some people can see/think in terms of black and white. Not me. I see things, people, situations in other terms, in shades of gray due to their complications, nuances, multi-facets. This extends to philosophical arguments and making decisions (pros and cons become lines on a page highlighted in lighter or darker gray tones). For an artist, it’s a great way to see the world; for a worker bee, it’s . . . complicated. Third nature, maybe.

That is why I’m, er, not ridiculously good at filing unless you specify the destination, because I see so many choices when it comes to filing other people’s documents. Actually, that’s when it comes to filing ANY documents, period. In my home, I have filing cabinets all around me organized with a “logic” that’s personal, whimsical, even. It’s a 50/50 chance I can find my own papers. . . but in the computer age of scanned docs and such, it’s easier.

Back in the day when I worked in offices for others, if you handed me a document with the place you want it filed clearly written on top -- which 90% of the people I worked for as a temp would do -- filing was a slam-dunk proposition.

Some offices had a “Filing” pile that they wanted the temp to tackle. I’d do filing when more pressing tasks (like phones, copying, faxing, typing) weren’t happening. But the smarter offices where I worked would tell the temps the Filing pile was off limits. It was important work to be saved for the regular employee (who’d, wisely, know exactly where to file the documents).

That was in what I call “the age of the hard copy,” back before so much work became digitized by computers. Of course physical filing was more important back then, before the Digital Age. . . 

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!

8-18-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #182 (Working Temp in NYC: Questioning the wisdom of the man)

Looking at the example of the 120-page document that was glibly sent by fax and redone at great expense, I saw many more examples of what I considered wasteful and non-insightful business moves. Looking into the corporate history of the many mergers and acquisitions (M&A’s) of one such company (which became the very publicly bankrupt Lehman Brothers), all I know is what I saw from the ground, looking up.

When I first temped for them, the company was called Shearson/American Express (’81 - ’84). Then it became Shearson Lehman/American Express (’84 - ’88). And then, Shearson Lehman Hutton (’88 - ’90). After that, it was Shearson Lehman Brothers (’90 - ’93). And then, Smith Barney Shearson.

Lastly, as a spinoff company, Lehman Brothers enjoyed a lengthy (by these standards) history, from 1994 to 2008, until it all went south for them.

At any rate, I worked mainly for the Shearson Lehman/American Express company. They had offices in the World Financial Center, across the covered pedestrian bridge over South Street/West Side Highway. They were nice offices, modern, full of light, not too high up. Their lobbies were gorgeous, especially during holiday season, in December.

Those WFC offices all looked and sounded like money. . . hushed, serious, intermittently jocular (pealing laughter and sounds of camaraderie amidst the silent gasps of defeat). The sound of money is an oxymoron, as when people can afford to, they minimize or deaden sound, with thick carpeting and soundproofing -- anything to keep out the sound of anybody else because that would introduce somebody else’s reality and money doesn’t have to care about anybody else because money is special, you see.

At least, that’s how it felt in these companies. . .they’d spring for private cars to take temps home afterhours. That’s because, instead of the bosses spending five minutes at the start of work and the end of work, monitoring what work had been accomplished by the temps, they ignored them. Temps would stay as late as they could, accruing overtime pay, then get a nice free ride (in a limousine service) home.

I wasn’t at all surprised when it all went bust in 2008. . . I wondered how Lehman Brothers kept going that long, really. . . 

8-15-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #179 (Working Temp in NYC: Xeroxing for The Man)

I know they call it just plain old copying now, but back in the dark ages of the copy machine, we called it photocopying and most of them were called Xerox machines, and so we used the verb “Xeroxing” a lot for making copies of documents.

The early Xerox copiers weren’t as fast and reliable as the current generation of super copiers, of course, but they weren’t without their usefulness and charms.

Before using copy machines, we had carbon papers to make copies with, and they were messy (the carbon stuff came off when you touched it). But we use the initials for that expression to this day, on our emails as well. Some jobs I worked, the bulk of the tasks were to make copies and distribute them to a big “cc” (carbon copy) and even “bcc” (blind carbon copy) list.

I quickly learned how to load those early copiers, troubleshoot, cajole ‘em into cooperation. I always checked the paper supply and figured out where the extra paper and toner cartridges were kept, first, when I arrived at a new office and knew I’d be visiting that room an awful lot.

This was invaluable knowledge once I went into my brief teaching career decades later. Teachers live and teach by generating lots of paper assignments to classes, especially in Social Studies and English. And a teacher who knows the ways of a copying machine is lucky indeed!

At any rate, we did do stupid stuff back then like Xerox our faces, our hands, our butts even. . . because it was hilarious and you weren’t supposed to, of course!

Another fun thing to do was to make copies of personal documents -- another no-no, but believe me, when you feel small and powerless and disrespected and put upon, you try to milk the system for every little convenience. I had a lot of song lyric sheets (even then) and felt compelled to always keep a hard copy of any correspondence I’d send out, personal or business. Some day I’ll find them and probably torch the lot. . .

Anyway, office temps were often sent off to make copies for other secretaries too, so I spent many days sequestered off in the copier room. I didn’t really mind too much, though. At least, I was away from the phones.

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.

8-02-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #166 (The Early Stirrings of Yuppie Culture in NYC, Where It All Started Pt. 4). . .

So. Thanks to my close personal Yuppie friend, Kris Skrinak, I was able to get into word processing as a temp. He'd invited me to join him at the Goldman Sachs office where he worked, afterhours, to try my hand at this program (on early PCs of course) called MultiMate. It was pretty primitive and involved a lot of F keys and shifting on the keyboard, etc. etc. A little laminated template on the keyboard was helpful because only if you used it all the time could you remember how to do everything necessary to create good looking, well formatted documents. I learned just enough to get my foot in the door and work jobs where I'd learn to do even more, on the job.

In the 1980s, when you worked in an office as an administrative assistant, we were called secretaries, still. And because I was on the road so much, I had to work, for years, as a temporary secretary (like the Paul McCartney song). My temp agency was called Accurate Temporaries (they're still around, on lower Broadway I think).  

Accurate had a little office in Two World Trade Center on the 21st floor. This was before the high security measures instituted after the first (in 1993?) and second, fatal, attacks on the World Trade Centers on 9/11/2001-- so getting around into almost any building was a breeze. Nobody was stopped on their way here and there -- we had so much more physical and mental freedom. Getting places was so much faster without all the mishigas of the security stops we experience post- 9/11, in 2012.

To get into Goldman Sachs after the workday, I thought, would be difficult -- but Kris figured it all out. I liked the scofflaw aspect of him having his boho writer-musician friend, me, come in and benefit from using the corporate equipment without their knowledge. I admired Kris for possibly putting his neck (and job) on the line to give me a helping hand. If I didn't learn word processing, I wouldn't be getting work in offices. I had to constantly learn and keep up with technology the whole time I did the part time office work gig.

And that's key: always keeping up with modern technology when you want to be useful. Again, I have to thank Kris S. for helping me get to the point where I could go to my temp agency and say to Denise at Accurate: "Yup, I know MultiMate -- I'm available to work for the next three weeks," and get work. Because from then on, it was all word processing -- typing into computers.

Don't recall the exact pay rate, but it was probably around $8 or $9 per hour in the mid '80's. . . and as my rent was between $300 and $400, it worked all right. Not great, but all right. . . . 

(Very) Odd Job Lauren

All right. Today I just about had the weirdest experience at a new (temp) job, ever. This is saying a lot for a person who seemingly has made a career out of job sampling like bon bons in the sweetshop of life. Not that I WANT to be jumping about so; it's probably all on account of being small and realizing that writers must have interesting lives in order to have something to write about. And now, my husband laughs when I tried to describe how my day went. "Well, it'll give you something interesting to write about!"

Well, try this one on for size (I'll try to be brief): I apply to this "Executive Admin Assistant" job via idealist.org six weeks ago. Being slightly depressed about my station in life, I've been striving not for something amazing, but for the old tried and true thing I could do for a nine to five, being an office worker drone (in addition to considerable amounts of writing and music, which I actually do believe I excel at; more people seem to need an admin than a writer or a musician, though I could be wrong!).

So, Monday night at dinnertime I get a call from a woman who has a nonprofit in New Haven. It centers around the Arts and Culture as being vital to society, and racism in healthcare, and film projects. It's all classy stuff and on a well made website. I won't mention her name or the organization -- and you'll soon see why. I say graciously, "How can I help you?" She tells me she's desperate for a good admin. . . had to let the other one go. . . AND her project coordinator is leaving the job at month's end. . . she wants to hire me to temp for a month at $20 per hour. . . then she says, "I'm going to ask you a question that's totally illegal but I have to. Are you over the age of 34?" Sadly yes, I respond. "These people 34 and under, this generation just doesn't get it!" Anyway, I pass that test.

Then she asks about my typing speed. "Last time I tested, it was around 6o wpm. Probably more now, as I type all the time." "Oh, good," she sighs, "This other person typed 35 wpm -- and she TOTALLY misrepresented herself in the resume. She looked good on paper, but she WASN'T HER RESUME!" Well duh, I could have said, but held my tongue. A resume is a billboard that highlights what the person wants you to see. People aren't resumes, and vice versa. I still don't know why people lie so much in this world. Exaggerate a little, OK, but blatant lies are ridiculous.

She tells me she's confined to a wheelchair, doesn't leave her house, and that everybody on her staff works right there, in her small NH apartment off Whalley Avenue. OK, I think, this is REALLY getting interesting. . . maybe not in a good way?

OK. I get out my Shoreline East Train schedule to see about going in to meet her. I am resolved to get into NH by train. She says that "Carny," from her office, will call the next day to make arrangements. The pseudonymous Carny calls, sure enough, and we figure out that it's best I come earlier, like 10 AM Wed. OK, that's cool -- I'll get done what I have to and get to the 9:15 train. No problem! I am glad somebody wants me. Maybe I can be helpful; we'll see.

So I get to the NH station and wait until, like, 10:15 -- and Carny has been delayed. So I wait around and she turns up by 10:30. We have to pick up carrots on way there -- which is OK too. She asks if I have lunch and I say no, so I pick up some protein bars to augment my fruit and cheese. We get to the apartment, and it smells like old food, cooking. There IS some old food, cooking. The small front room contains three desks & chairs with lots of files and piles of paper etc. Attached to that, a small dingy but functional kitchen. I notice there's no microwave so I might as well toss my leftover coffee.

I meet the woman's husband, a nice guy who seems kind of exhausted, and a young man who is in their care who doesn't talk, just grunts and honks repeatedly, like a Canada goose: "Hoh, hoh, hoh, HOH!" I realize this aimlessly shuffing about teenager is developmentally challenged, so I don't get into engaging him in drawn out conversations. I also meet a few women who function as housekeepers or cooks, and they're nice, too.

I am handed a manila folder full of papers to do data entry with. I ask, "Am I going to meet her (the boss) today?" Carny's face falls. "Oh, you don't know? She had a rough one last night -- was in the emergency room. . . " Apparently, this woman -- the boss -- has Muscular Dystrophy, diabetes, and a host of other major health issues. No meeting with her today! I am pretty disappointed, as this was the purpose of my trip.

Then I inquire if I will be paid to work. "Yes." All right, I dig in and start to do the pile of data entry after Carny explains to me. All this goes on for a few hours, smoothly, the sounds of the street outside lulling me interspersed with the young man honking away and other sounds of painful aspiration from the bedroom. . . I feel guilty that I'm turned off by the surroundings, and very conflicted about my future with this company. Everybody is certainly nice, but the lulling sounds and smells and thoughts all mingle into a not-too-agreeable feeling. On top of that, I'm kind of struggling with a major depression and then I start thinking I'm such an asshole for aiming my sights so low. . . . though $20 an hour was what I was paid in my last job (plus benefits). That job wasn't very interesting, and sometimes my coworkers simply toxic, but. . . ah, to go back. At least it smelled nice and there was a fitness center onsite!

So on the trip back to NH station on our way back (2 1/2 miles on the odometer), I asked Carny about more general job stuff, like does she always work there, in that litte apartment. No, not necessarily. Good. Then I ask if there are any breaks, like if I could step away for a walk or at lunchtime, occasionally. "No, we work straight through." I mention, trying to hide my dismay, that that's not healthy. . . she comments that maybe the boss could learn from that. Hmmm.

Before leaving the apartment, the boss woman, via phone intercom, cross examines me about my work schedule and so I tell her -- to feel relieved and off the hook, oddly -- I'll come next week, Monday through Thursday. Thursday is a major event in Albany, and she asks if I would come along for that. "It will show you what we're about. Will be very important." Plus, the pay rate for events is $200. Hmm, that's not bad, I think. Anyway, I figure I'm on the spot and I'll give it a try. . .

Once at NH station, after all this, I'm in shock and I walk around so troubled that I forget to take my coffee from Dunkin' Donuts and have to go back for it! I call a few friends and try to figure it out. One says that times are so hard, sure, stick with it! My friend Dave says we'll talk about it tomorrow. My husband just chuckles. He often has to do jobs he doesn't like at all to bring in money. I figure he thinks, why not Lauren? Who knows.

I just know that I saw a NYT subhead on my way out of the train back to OS station, and it read, "In Medicine, The Power of Learning to Say No." I do believe that was a message intended for me. . . but meanwhile, please send me your own thoughts/comments/experiences. I am struggling with whether I should return and work for a month and have them think I'm signing on and training for this position, or just come out with the truth: it's a grim environment for me to work in and I can't be a part of it because it's a really bad fit. I'm not a quitter; I just have this sinking feeling . . . though first impressions aren't always lasting.

HELP!!