Old Friends and Work

3/31/2017

Ever notice that, let's say, you work with somebody, sometimes for years and then one of you leaves the company?  Once the work connection is broken, it seems as if friendships seldom survive.  One of you has moved on; and, while promises were made about staying in touch, if you have/had nothing in common but working together, the time between getting together becomes less frequent.  And over time, and it's nobody's fault, you just drift away.

This week, through a bit of searching on Facebook, I found two friends that I once worked with at Marriott.  I've reached out to both of them, and they both accepted my friend request.  This has made me very happy.  I've enjoyed reading about their lives and their successes.  Unfortunately, I believe that working defined me and not one to toot my own horn, but believe I was a very good secretary.  

I had a teacher in high school, Mrs. Orr who taught business classes: typing, shorthand, that sort of thing.  She inspired me when she said that when you entered the work force, you had to be the best of the best.  Nearly 50 years later, I set my standards high.  Oh, in the beginning of my "career", I had some truly awful jobs and some very weird bosses.  One of the strangest, was a man who had me count, literally pieces of something, but I can't remember what.  I do remember it was a mind-numbing job and I hated every second that I worked for him.  And then harassment by co-works set in. In the 60's and 70's, women were treated poorly.  If you had a baby, you had 6 weeks off.  If you didn't return at the end of the 6 weeks, you found yourself unemployed.  

I worked for a Title company and was basically what you would call a key punch operator.  Me, along with other young women, typed legal descriptions onto paper tape ALL day long.  Making a mistake is a real nightmare with paper tape.  So day after day, I typed things like "The northeast corner of the southwest corner..... blah, blah.  Once a week we typists were hauled into a room together, and our work production was discussed.  If you hadn't produced as many tapes as your co-workers, you were subjected to shame.  Now, it didn't matter if you typed only ONE legal description that encompassed hundreds of pages - it was only ONE document, compared to others who produced more work than you.

One afternoon, the boss told me to come and see him at the end of the day.  I was told that I was a terrible typist and perhaps should consider a different career.  I was fired at the ripe old age of 20 and nothing spells disaster when you're looking for a job when you've been fired.  After leaving the boss's office, I went back to my work area and took out a pair of scissors.  We had generic tapes that were part of every legal document and I cut them all in half.  Remember I was 20 and still a bit rebellious. When the boss saw what I was doing, he told me that I couldn't cut the tapes.  My reply was simply "you just told me that as a typist I pretty much stink", so why would you want any of my work?

Over the years, I mellowed and got older and smarter about working.  My theory was to keep your head down and your mouth shut (as far as opinions go).  With the advent of computers and sending email messages to co-workers and friends, I kept one simple rule: don't put anything down in writing that you wouldn't want spoken out loud.  This rule I followed religiously.  Oh, and don't write anything about anybody unless you are flattering said person.

Over time, I have worked with many wonderful men and women.  And, this week, I was able to find two women who I used to work with and I'm glad to be back in touch with them.  The direction of our lives' paths are different now, and I may never physically see them again, but it's been wonderful to catch up.  So to these two friends, I'm glad I found you.

P