8-24-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #188 (Working Temp in NYC: Typing for the Wrong Man)

As for the typing, there were different kinds of machines I’d work on. First, for a brief few years, on a typewriter like a large, clunky, loud IBM Selectric. Then came the in-between choice, an electric typewriter with memory that they called an early “word processor. . . “ the text showed up on a small screen above the keyboard and you could backspace and erase before hitting the “print” button.

Once actual personal computers with floppy disks did the work, using MultiMate or WordPerfect, soon enough Microsoft Office Suite took over and it was MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint. I’d say that was in the mid to late ‘90’s, though.

Right around that time, one of my tempjobs took me to work for Hearst. A super conglomerate communications corporation, Hearst at the time had several successful magazines and cable television companies that ran under its legendary umbrella.

(Hearst was the company whose founder, William Randolph Hearst, the Orson Welles movie classic, “Citizen Kane,” was based on. I used to walk the halls of the building I worked in whispering, “Rosebud. . . “)

When one of the Presidents of the Cable TV operations, Raymond Joslin, needed a temp because one of his two assistants had to take a few weeks leave, I was called to fill in. I was warned from the outset, “He’s a very demanding boss -- with a very short temper.”

Optimistic to a fault, and philosophical too (this was when I started reading Epictetus, the stoic Greek philosopher, and carried a tiny book of his quotations around with me for inspiration), I took the assignment, knowing it wouldn’t be a piece of cake but probably incredibly interesting. . . 

8-23-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #187 (Working Temp in NYC: What is so goshdurned great about TYPING, anyway? Pt. 2)

Maybe keyboarding reminds me of piano playing. . . how I long to be a boogie woogie piano player. . . I’ve always had a piano around, just hoping it’d beckon sufficiently for me to get good at it, but then, that keyboard on the computer beckons even more beguilingly and. . .

Anyway, when I worked tempjobs in offices, it was the last hurrah or the last gasp of the old school executives, the ones who’d bark, “Take a letter, Joan!” or whatever. Most of the older guys or the senior executive officers had no typing skills, so they’d write out drafts on yellow legal pads and just hand the writing to their assistants -- like me.

I’ll go into detail about him later, but probably the guy with the nicest handwriting -- or the easiest for me to decipher -- was Norman Mailer. But, he wasn’t an Accurate Temporaries client. That’s another story -- related, of course, but later for that.

Even though some men had horrendous handwriting, I am very good at deciphering handwritten script (it’s like a puzzle to me) so I did well at drafting copy for bosses who couldn’t -- or wouldn’t -- type their own.

Not so when it came to female executives; they’d invariably type their own stuff. The women bosses were few in number but towards the end of my temping in NYC they definitely were a force (maybe 1/3 of my jobs were with female bosses by the end of the ‘90’s.). And then, the younger generation of male executives (starting with guys MY age) were proficient on the computer; they didn’t need assistance with typing, either.

Now, when I first started the word processing/computer typing, I wasn’t so great at formatting (on WordPerfect, then MicroSoft Word, all versions). But after years, I got pretty good. . . also on Excel and PowerPoint. But then, I learned everything on the job and couldn’t have been happier to be working and learning. . .

But then, every job I’ve ever had has been a learning experience!

8-22-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians -- Starter Job #186 (Working Temp in NYC: What is so goshdurned great about TYPING, anyway?)

That’s the question I’m always asking: why do I like typing so much? Is it because, by an inexplicable (this is when science seems like voodoo to me -- might as well be, for all I can comprehend) muscle memory, a person can create words and punctuation, on a page? Is it because it seems like a miracle that it all makes sense and that we’re able to do this (when you REALLY think about it)?

Nowadays they have classes to teach “keyboarding” in school, but back when I learned to type by not looking at the keyboard, doing it by touch, it was called “touch typing.” It took me forever to get the hang of it and to not look down at the actual keyboard but. . . once it came to me, I loved typing. In fact, I must still love typing because I average thousands of words per (average) day.

Actually, typing isn’t writing, so strike the previous sentence. Here and now just for the record, when I worked temp and had to type for an employer, I didn’t mind all that much. Typing was preferable to phones, or filing, or photocopying. . . only transcribing was more fun, to me. I’m sure I’m in the minority, because in one sense it’s kind of a pain in the ass to have to type up other people’s thoughts and rough drafts (and make sense of their mumblings and meandering thoughts, taped on the DictaPhone).

I can’t say why I was so fond of it back then (wouldn’t be too crazy about typing up somebody else’s work now -- but probably would depend on the person and situation). But I do like “busy work” and respect the muscle memory of fingers flashing fast across a keyboard. . .