Hi ho, hi ho. It's off to work I go.
My first forays into the working world. Or how hangers could have been my retail downfall
It’s funny. I thought this was going to be one of my shorter posts, given my work always was kind of a sideline to whatever else was going on in my life at the time. I never submerged myself in my jobs or made them my primary focus. I have never nurtured ambitions to wend my way up any ladders, corporate or otherwise. I am not a fan of the expression “working for a paycheck and benefits,” because I never really felt that way. I worked because… well, I was supposed to, remuneration aside. And yet here I am, publishing the first of THREE newsletters on my employment experiences—as always, hoping you will nod in some conspiratorial way at my memories.
I don’t remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I never envisioned myself in any particular profession. My generation being what it was, girls were more or less assumed to become wives and mommies and, career-wise, teachers or nurses. I was afraid of sickness. I liked kids. So I was preordained to pursue employment in education. Plus, I was told, teaching was something I could coordinate with motherhood. [Sidebar: Ironically, my dad often said the same thing about women in pharmacy. Great pay. Set your own hours.] Any mention of choosing a path that would allow me to fully embrace my passion for writing was discouraged, all discussion curtailed by the notion there is no money or security in any field related to writing. Oh! And that I could always write no matter how I otherwise earned a living wage.
My first job was self-appointed camp counselor. We were still living on Fox Chase Road, so I was younger than eleven when I gathered a few youngsters of about five years old (give or take) into my garage and kept them entertained with crafts and games. My small business lasted for a few weeks of summer mornings. I vaguely remember receiving a few dollars from parents. Probably because I tired of coming up with ways to amuse my campers, I suspended operations and went back to playing with my like-aged friends and doing puppet shows for my former campers when the mood struck.
Through my early teen years, unlike many of my contemporaries, I only dabbled in babysitting. And for some reason, mostly the day shift—no sleepy toddlers to read to and tuck in so I could catch up Nancy Drew. I love/loved kids, but like with my little camping business, I was kind of lazy about thinking up things to do with them. I enjoyed interacting with them and especially watching them do their kid things but not so much keeping them busy. And I worried they would get sick or injured on my watch (yes, even then).
I remember an afternoon spent with the two young daughters of my dad’s pharmacy friend. I tried to engage them in board games and hide ‘n seek, but each activity occupied them only briefly. I spent most of the time looking at my watch, willing the quick passage of time until their parents returned. Apparently, they were as bored with me as I was with them. I wasn’t asked back to babysit. And I didn’t seek out babysitting jobs—I occasionally was recruited by my parents’ friends.
For several summers, I was a counselor at my synagogue’s day camp. The activities were already planned; I just had to shuffle my young charges between music and art and swimming and lunch and the playground. I praised (even joined) their singing and coloring. I encouraged their independence while changing in and out of bathing suits. I responded with enthusiasm to their pleas of “Higher!” when pushing them on the swings. Age-appropriately, I tied their shoes (no Velcro slip-ons back then) or showed them how to make bunny ears with their laces like my dad had taught me. I listened to their sweet stories. I still quote Bruce (“Dizzy”) Dizengoff: “Once a punce a punce a time, there were three bears. Wanna know who?” He was blond and baby-faced and adorable. He and his bunk mates melted me like ice cream on a warm Summer’s day.
Those summers I also helped out in the camp kitchen if Flossie, the chief cook and bottle washer, needed assistance mushing up tuna salad or assembling PB and J sandwiches or dispensing bug juice. Flossie and her husband (Dan? Dave?) were the power behind the scenes, running meal time, driving the bus, and providing custodial services and hugs.
One summer, I had a brief fling with Broadway stardom. The camp was planning to put on a counselor-camper production of Oliver, and I was cast as Nancy. All went well until there was some scandal involving the camp/show director, and he was fired. The show was cancelled. My only other negative camp experience was when I accidentally got a child’s finger caught in a door. I wasn’t aware the kiddo had their hand near the hinge until I heard the yelp. Unfortunately, this occurred the day before I was to leave for a brief stint at the shore with my parents. I came back to work remorseful and over-cautious about my charges around doors.
During my mid-teen years, I worked on Sunday mornings at my dad’s pharmacy, manning the front register and ringing up purchases of greeting cards, candy, and cigarettes. I sometimes covered the back register by the medicine counter. I learned not to be offput by men asking if my dad could help them, because those were the days when Trojans were not openly displayed. Asking for my dad was doublespeak for, I need to get condoms, and I am embarrassed to ask a young girl for assistance.
My dad would open the store at nine, then send his Sunday delivery guy to pick me up to work from ten to two, which included a quick lunch break at the nearby Nasherai restaurant (I loved their steak sandwiches). Besides the yummy lunch, one of the delivery guys let me drive his Camaro on the way to work, despite the fact I had yet to obtain my drivers permit.
Pre-Christmas, I helped out at Bruce’s dad’s ladies wear store. Besides spending time with Bruce, the best part was more steak sandwiches, this time, from a little eatery called Charlie’s. I guess I was okay being paid in food.
Our freshman year of college, Bruce opened his first brick-and-mortar business—Bridal Suite. His previous business ventures included selling loom-woven potholders door-to-door as a kid and most recently pedaling uniforms out of his car trunk to nurses at local hospitals. The building on Woodland Avenue had been in his family for decades; it was time to think about an enterprise that could sustain him and his future family. I helped him ready the property for its new business, painting the storage/sewing room bins and generally trying to be supportive. Once the store opened, I occasionally assisted customers with gown and color choices and wrote orders, compensated by the satisfaction I shared with Bruce when the business took hold and grew to include two more shops and one of the biggest bridal businesses in the area in its day.
By the summer after freshman year of college, I had outgrown working at day camp. I secured a job at Cameo Swimwear, thinking retail would be more lucrative pay-wise and might offer discounts on bathing suit purchases (the few I was willing to make). Anticipating at the very least helping stock the racks and at best actually selling, I was beyond disappointed and frustrated to find myself untangling hangers. Literally, that was all I did. I believe I lasted two days.
Despite my meager retail experience (and because Bruce’s cousins owned the chain), I got a job at Charming Shoppe on Frankford Avenue in Philly. A young woman named Marlyn needed to take time off to have her impacted wisdom teeth extracted, so she trained me to fill in. We became fast friends, she very much appreciating my bringing her Love Story to read to distract her from her postsurgical discomfort. We worked at Charming in tandem, so I rarely got to see her at the store.
Fortunately for our budding friendship, Marlyn and I both were sophomores in Temple University’s Department of Education. We began scheduling classes together. We strongly disliked our Childhood Development 101 instructor, who had a tendency to pick on me. Daring troublemaker that I was (not!), I wrote a blistering review of his class at the end of my finals. Wanting to echo my sentiments and yielding to my literary prowess, Marlyn inscribed her final exam with, “What Barbara Zafran said.”
Marlyn and I completed our studies in less than four years and then both of us landed teaching positions in the Title I program for elementary schools in Pennsauken, New Jersey. My Title I placement was the perfect opportunity to get my teaching feet wet. I provided auxiliary activities for students who needed reinforcement of basic reading and math skills. My fondest memory is of spending a Saturday with some of them just having fun together, picnicking in their neighborhood and giving them a little extra attention, which basically seemed to be all they really needed. Marlyn secured a permanent teaching position and stayed with Pennsauken after our first temporary assignment; I began pursuing jobs with Philadelphia schools according to the terms of a scholarship I had been awarded by that district.
Meanwhile, I spent the remaining summers during college working as a low GS grade employee of the United States Navy at its Naval Aviation Supply Depot in Northeast Philadelphia. The 134-acre complex once featured old planes on the lawns outside its low-slung buildings. [Sidebar: Ironically, Marlyn’s mom worked a building over from me and we often lunched together.] It was my responsibility to wrest the dot-matrix reports spewing from the computers overnight, separate out the duplicates, organize them, and turn them over to my supervisors. I was to note any in-coming orders for airplane parts, like toilets for C-130 cargo planes. I sometimes verified order status by phone with the likes of Smitty from Cherry Point. For all I knew, he could have been a general, but to me he was some guy with a broken aircraft potty.
Those were the days when the actual computers were housed in temperature-maintained rooms. The printers were stationed among our desks in the cavernous office areas. I frequently wore a winter sweater to work in case I had reason to enter the computer room. This was a problem only because I was driving my unair-conditioned 1971 Nova to work, and I was sometimes too lazy to take the extra minute to remove that blue sweater.
During my college semesters, I worked evenings and Saturdays at John Wanamaker’s department stores in downtown Philadelphia and suburban Jenkintown. At Christmas time, I helped staff their Santa’s Secret Shops, assisting youngsters make “secret” purchases for the people and pets on their shopping lists. Off season, I floated among various departments, taking cash and credit card payments and “closing out” the register at day’s end. There was something intrinsically satisfying about seeing the clocks hit nine thirty and then listening to all of the registers go through the jangly motions of X-ing out (totaling sales for the day) and Z-ing out (taking the numbers back to zero to start fresh tomorrow)—all those lovely noisy mechanisms singing the song of a successful day. By the end of college, most stores had converted their registers to more technologically advanced versions that did their tallying and clearing quietly, providing a subtle hum, not the old pleasant cacophony.
By January 1973, I had my degree. I was qualified to have my own classroom. And my first salaried position.
Next week’s newsletter: real, full-time employment.
Hilarious! Reading your blogs has become a favorite part of my week!