Some of these starters, they won"t do nothin". I told "em, "One good piece of a.s.s and one day"s work would kill you guys." They never done hard work. They were always on the cars. They were squawking that they work hard opening doors for people. That was a pleasure to me, "cause you get to know people. You get to know their habits.
Certain persons get on at the same time and I know just where they"re goin". This one woman, I"d catch her every time, at ten or ten thirty. She wouldn"t tell me where she was goin". She"d always get off at the fourteenth floor. See, the main washroom"s on the fourteenth floor. (Laughs.) I"m security too. Anybody takes anything out, they gotta get a pa.s.s. Somebody look suspicious, you ask "em where they"re going-in a polite way. You just watch the car, see where they"re going, and don"t say no more. Sometimes by lookin" at a person you can tell what character he is. Any time they go to the board I always say, "Can I help you?" I won"t say any more. When they see you"re watchin" "em, they"ll go right down again. That"s all.
A lot of people come in here, they go to that board, they won"t even ask you, "cause they"re afraid. Some of these buildings, the guy says, "There"s the directory." I try to help. It don"t hurt. You mention a room number, I would give you that room number. "Cause every time they change that directory I try to study that board. It makes me look like a genius when somebody asks me something.
A person goes on a vacation or they"re out on a business trip, I tell "em, "You were gone." They"ll say thanks that you were thinkin" about "em. Remembering people"s names, that means a lot. They let you know if they want to be called mister or missis. I respect these guys with their high positions. If they want you to call "em by their first name, they"ll tell you.
I found out executives are the really good ones. They"ll kid around. Even the ordinary people, they"ll kid around with you. Someday, if I don"t talk to "em, they"ll say, "What"s the matter, you mad or somethin"?" If I don"t smile, people will want to know if I"m sick or what happened. You gotta always have somethin" goin". I always tell "em in the morning, "Have fun." Next time I see "em, "Hurry back." When it"s bad out, I always say, "Did you order this weather?" They like this kidding around. They say it cheers up their day. I"m not hard to get along with n.o.body.
I got a picture with Dirksen.42 We open the door when he come in and just as he shook my hand, this photographer-I got it home, two of "em, colored pictures. He come right up and shook my hand. Daley came in: "h.e.l.lo, there." He thanked me for takin" him up. You know who else I met here? Sonny and Cher. They were dressed like hippies. I didn"t know who they were, so somebody told me. It could happen any time. When I see a celebrity, I go home and tell my wife about it. She"ll tell all her friends and relatives. She"ll say who I saw. I don"t want to retire. I"d be lost if I had to stay home and don"t see the public all day long.
POSTSCRIPT: "Today we have no friends since TV came out. One time, before TV, friends come to your house. You say, "Come over," and as soon as they come over, they stick their nose in that TV. Forget about it! I"ll tell you, I bought a Hammond organ. I"m takin" organ lessons. Soon"s I get home, before I have my dinner-two cans of beer. Then I"ll eat. Then I"ll practice the organ. TV? Forget it."
TIM DEVLIN.
He suffered a nervous breakdown and was in the hospital for three months. He"s been out for a year. "I"m thirty years old and I sometimes feel fifty." (Laughs.) Right now I"m doing work that I detest. I"m a janitor. It"s a dirty job. You work hard. When I"m at work I wear a uniform, gray khaki pants and a gray shirt. It"s baggy pants. It"s what you see a lot of janitors wearing. This is the kind of work I used to think n.i.g.g.e.rs would do or hillbillies or DPs. You don"t a.s.sociate with people like that. Now I"m one of them.
"You"re a b.u.m"-this is the picture I have of myself. I"m a flop because of what I"ve come to. There"s five of us at work here. It"s a housing project. Three can barely speak a word of English. They"re DPs. They work very hard and don"t complain. They"re perfectly content, but I"m not. It"s a dead end. Tonight I"m gonna meet a couple of old friends at a bar. I haven"t seen them for a long time. I feel inferior. I"ll bulls.h.i.t "em. I"ll say I"m a lawyer or something.
When you meet somebody at a party they ask, "What do you do?" I bulls.h.i.t "em. I tell "em anything. Their minds are like a computer. "I"m a CPA." Oh, he"s gotta make at least eighteen-thousand a year. He"s a success. If I said I was an electrician, they"d think I make nine dollars an hour. If you say, "I"m a janitor"-ooohhh! You get this feeling that you are low. It"s a blow to my ego. Who wants to be a janitor? They even call them maintenance engineers.
I don"t have any interest in furthering myself, but I just can"t see myself doing this the rest of my life. I almost get to the point that I ought be on welfare. I ought to chuck it all and just not do anything. My whole outlook on work is different than it was. I"d be free if I could say I"m a janitor . . . If I could only say, "I"m Tim Devlin and I enjoy what I"m doing!"
I"ve had college training and I"d been in sales almost eight years. I was right off the a.s.sembly line: In life you become a success to get ahead; money is the key to judge people by. That was my childhood thing-the big office, the big car, the big house. I was doing as good as I wanted to be. I could have done much better.
I fell in love and thought it was the most beautiful experience in the world. Shortly after I was married I found out that my wife-I"m not blaming her-was interested in money. She was judging me against other people my age. Was I a financial success? I put in long hours. I got this feeling I was just a machine. I felt at the end of the week, Here"s the money. Now do you love me? Am I a better man?
I was selling a photocopy machine for $1,250. My commission was $300. The total value of the machine was $480. I thought, Jesus Christ, there"s something wrong here. If it costs $480, why can"t it be sold for $480-for as small a margin of profit as possible, not for as much profit as possible? I"m looking toward a utopian society, ain"t I? I didn"t feel proud of myself.
I was one of their soldiers. I read the sales manuals. If the customer says this, you say that. Turn him around, get him in the palm of your hand, and -boom!-get him to sign on the dotted line. You give him bulls.h.i.t. You wiggle, you finagle, you sell yourself, and you get him to sign. Pow! you won a round. The next day is another round. What the h.e.l.l am I doing? I don"t enjoy it. My marriage is turning sour. I"m making good money. I have a company car. This is what my wife wants, but I feel bad. I begin to question things. It blew the whole marriage.
I never talk about it to anyone. People would think I"m a communist or I"m going crazy. A person that"s making money shouldn"t question the source of it. I always kept it to myself. This was the American Dream. This is what my father was always pounding into my head.
I learned this angle thing from my father. He was always trying for some gimmick to make a lot of money. He didn"t want to spend the rest of his life as a tradesman. He was always trying to open up a business or a franchise. He lost every dime he made. He believed in the American Dream. We should examine this dream. If I sell a machine that"s worth $480 for $1,250, is that the American Dream?
When I got divorced it hit me bad. I went through a crisis. I blamed the system, I blamed the country, I blamed G.o.d. This is where the nervous breakdown came in. I just didn"t give a s.h.i.t any more. I didn"t want to see anyone any more. I didn"t want to hear someone tell me, "Yeah, next week I"m gonna get a promotion to district manager." Big deal. I don"t give a G.o.dd.a.m.n if he"s gonna be President of the United States. I"m cynical. This is what I"m carrying around with me.
When I was selling, my friends looked up to me. One worked in a bakery. Another was driving a cab and delivering pizza. They were thinking, "Maybe I ought to go into sales." A salesman! You wear a suit every day, you drive a company car. Now they call them account executives. A CTA bus driver may make more money, but you have a white shirt, a tie . . . My sisters are all married to white-shirts.
A lot of people are considered failures but it"s not their fault. I don"t know exactly what I want to do. I don"t want to go back in the rat race. Will it be the same thing again? I"ve had offers to go back into sales-to be a con artist. But I"ve gotten turned off. I think I missed the boat. If I could do it all over again, I would have gone into the field of mental health, really finding out what makes people tick. I would love to find out why people think it"s important to be a success.
I do want to make it financially. But the only thing open for me would be sales work again. I"m not twenty-one any more. My G.o.d, I"d have to start off with maybe a hundred and a quarter a week. That really isn"t any money. That"s just enough to put a roof over your head. If I do apple polishing, I might make a.s.sistant manager in ten years-and maybe a lot of t.i.tles along the way. I"m afraid that"s the only way open for me now. I guess I could buy stock, get remarried, and be part of what the system"s all about. But I really question the system . . .
COUNTING.
NANCY ROGERS.
At twenty-eight, she has been a bank teller for six years. She earns five-hundred dollars a month.
What I do is say h.e.l.lo to people when they come up to my window. "Can I help?" And transact their business, which amounts to taking money from them and putting it in their account. Or giving them money out of their account. You make sure it"s the right amount, put the deposits on through the machine so it shows on the books, so they know. You don"t really do much. It"s just a service job.
We have a time clock. It"s really terrible. You have a card that you put in the machine and it punches the time that you"ve arrived. If you get there after eight-forty-five, they yell and they scream a lot and say, "Late!" Which I don"t quite understand, because I"ve never felt you should be tied to something like a clock. It"s not that important. If you"re there to start doing business with the people when the bank opens, fine.
I go to my vault, open that, take out my cash, set up my cage, get my stamps set out, and ink my stamp pad. From there on until nine " when the bank opens, I sit around and talk to the other girls.
My supervisor yells at me. He"s about fifty, in a position that he doesn"t really enjoy. He"s been there for a long time and hasn"t really advanced that much. He"s supposed to have authority over a lot of things but he hasn"t really kept informed of changes. The girls who work under him don"t really have the proper respect that you think a person in his position would get. In some ways, it"s nice. It"s easier to talk to him. You can ask him a question without getting, "I"m too busy." Yet you ask a question a lot of times and you don"t get the answer you need. Like he doesn"t listen.
We work right now with the IBM. It"s connected with the main computer bank which has all the information about all the savings accounts. To get any information, we just punch the proper b.u.t.tons. There are two tellers to a cage and the machine is in between our windows. I don"t like the way the bank is set up. It separates people. People are already separated enough. There are apartment houses where you don"t know anybody else in the building. They object to your going into somebody else"s cage, which is understandable. If the person doesn"t balance, they"ll say, "She was in my cage." Cages? I"ve wondered about that. It"s not quite like being in prison, but I still feel very locked in.
The person who shares my cage, she"s young, black, and very nice. I like her very much. I have fun with her. She"s originally from the South. She"s a very relaxed type of person. I can be open and not worry I might offend her. I keep telling her she"s a bigot. (Laughs.) And she keeps saying, "There are only three kinds of people I dislike-the Italians, the Polacks, and the Jews." (Laughs.) I"ll walk up to her and put my hands on her shoulder and she"ll say, "Get your hands off me, white girl, don"t you know you"re not supposed to touch?" It"s nice and relaxed kind of-we sit around and gossip about our boyfriends, which is fun.
A lot of people who work there I don"t know. Never talk to, have no idea who they are. You"re never introduced. I don"t even know who the president of the bank is. I don"t know what he looks like. It"s really funny, because you have to go have okays on certain things. Like we"re only allowed to cash up to a certain amount without having an officer okay it. They"d say, "Go see Mr. Frank." And I"d say, "Who"s that? Which one? Point him out." The girl who"s the supervisor for checking kept saying, "You don"t know who he is? You don"t know who he is? He"s the one over there. Remember him? You waited on him." "Yeah, but I didn"t know what his name was. n.o.body ever told me."
I enjoy talking to people. Once you start getting regular customers, you take your time to talk-which makes the job more enjoyable. It also makes me wonder about people. Some people are out working like every penny counts. Other people, it"s a status thing with them. They really like to talk about it. I had a man the other day who was buying some stock. "Oh well, I"m buying fifty-thousand dollars worth of AT&T, and I"m also investing in . . ." He wouldn"t stop talking. He was trying to impress me: I have money, therefore I"m somebody.
Money doesn"t mean that much to me. To me, it"s not money, it"s just little pieces of paper. It"s not money to me unless I"m the one who"s taking the money out or cashing the check. That"s money because it"s mine. Otherwise it doesn"t really mean anything. Somebody asked me, "Doesn"t it bother you, handling all that money all day long?" I said, "It"s not money. I"m a magician. I"ll show you how it works." So I counted out the paper. I said, "Over here, at this window, it"s nothing. Over there, at that window, it"s money." If you were gonna think about it every minute: "Oh lookit, here"s five-thousand dollars, wow! Where could I go on five-thousand dollars? Off to Bermuda-" You"d get hung-up and so dissatisfied of having to deal with money that"s not yours, you couldn"t work.
People are always coming in and joking about-"Why don"t you and I get together? I"ll come and take the money and you ring the alarm after I"ve left and say, "Oh, I was frightened, I couldn"t do anything." " I say, "It"s not enough." The amount in my cash drawer isn"t enough. If you"re going to steal, steal at least into the hundreds of thousands. To steal five or ten thousand isn"t worth it.
It"s joked about all the time. Sometimes it"s kidded about if you do have a difference. Maybe I was paying out a hundred dollars and two bills stuck together and I gave him $110 instead. A lot of times people have come back and said, "I think you gave me ten dollars too much." Like they didn"t want me to get in trouble. "She won"t balance today and here I am sitting with ten dollars she doesn"t have." It"s really nice to know people are honest. Quite a few are. Anyway, we"re bonded, we"re insured for that. The bank usually has a slush fund for making up differences one way or the other.
I"ve never been held up. We have a foot alarm, one that you just trip with your toe. At the other place, we had a b.u.t.ton you push, which was immediately under the counter. Some people, you get funny feeling about. Like I don"t think that"s his pa.s.sbook, it"s probably stolen. Most of the time you"re never right. (Laughs.) One of the girls who works here was held up. She just gave the man the money he wanted. (Laughs.) Which is all you can do. She went up to our head teller to get more money. She said, "Mr. Murphy, I was just held up." He said, "Oh sure, uh huh, ha, ha, ha." She said, "No, really I was. (Laughs.) He said, "Ooohhh, you really were, weren"t you?" (Laughs.) Like wow! I don"t think they ever caught the person. She didn"t give him all that money. She just gave him what she had in one part of the drawer and didn"t bother to open the other drawers, where most of that cash was stored.
I really don"t know what I"d do. I don"t think I"d panic too badly. I"d be very nervous and upset, but I"d probably do exactly what the man wanted. If possible, trip the alarm, but that"s not going to do much good. I"d give him the money, especially if he had a gun in his hand or even giving the slight implication . . . Money"s not worth that much. The bank"s insured by the government for things like that, so there"s no real . . . It"d be exciting, I guess.
A lot of younger girls who are coming in now, they get pushed too fast. If you"ve never done it before, it takes time just to realize-you have to stop and think, especially if it"s busy. Here I am doing three different things. I am taking money out of these people"s accounts and putting part of it into checking and he wants part of it back, plus he wants to cash a check, and he asks for a couple of money orders. You got all these things that you have to remember about-that have to be added and subtracted so everything comes out right.
You force yourself into speeding up because you don"t want to make people wait. "Cause you"re there for one reason, you"re there to serve them. Lots of times there"s somebody you know back there and you want to get rid of these people so you can talk to him. (Laughs.) In a lot of cases, as far as males, you"re gonna be asked out. Whether you accept or not is something else. I met quite a few people in the bank who I"ve gone out with. Sometimes relationships work out very nicely and you become good friends with these people and it may last for years. My social life is affected by my job, oh sure. A customer coming in and saying, "I"m giving a party next week, would you like to come?"
Some places kind of frown on it. But most of them have no control. One fella I met at the bank, he was from an auditing firm, who I went out with for a short while. He said, "Don"t tell anybody. We"re not supposed to go with anybody from the bank we work for." That"s weird, for a job to carry over into your private life.
Banks are very much giving into des.e.xualizing the women who work there, by putting uniforms on them. Trying to make everybody look the same. In one way it"s nice, it saves on clothes. In another way, it"s boring. putting on the same thing almost every day is-ech!! Some I"ve seen aren"t too bad, but in some places they"re very tailored and in drab colors. Uptight is the only word I can think of to describe them. The place I worked before, it was a navy-blue suit and it was-blach!! (Laughs.) Most bank tellers are women because of the pay scale. It"s a.s.sumed that women are paid a little bit lower than men. (Laughs.) There are only two men that work in the area, aside from my supervisor. The head teller, who"s been there for years and years and years, and a young fella in charge of all the silver. For most men it"s a job that doesn"t offer that much kind of advancement. You"d have to be the type that would really just enjoy sittin" back and doing the same thing over and over again. A transaction is a transaction is a transaction.
Some days, when you"re aggravated about something, you carry it after you leave the job. Certain people are bad days. (Laughs.) The type of person who will walk in and says, "My car"s double-parked outside. Would you hurry up, lady? I haven"t got time to waste around here." And you go-"What???" You want to say, "Hey, why did you double-park your car? So now you"re gonna blame me if you get a ticket, "cause you were dumb enough to leave it there?" But you can"t. That"s the one ha.s.sle. You can"t say anything back. The customer"s always right.
Certain people who are having a bad day themselves feel they must take it out on you: "What are you doing there?" "Why are you checking that?" "Why did you have to do that?" You calmly try and explain to them, "That"s what"s required." You can"t please "em. They make sure you"re in as nasty a mood as they are. (Laughs.) We have quite a bit of talk during coffee breaks. There"s speculation: "Do you think this is what happened?" There was a girl who was let go this week. n.o.body was told as to the why or wherefore. n.o.body really still knows. They keep coming through the bank saying, "We don"t want rumors started about such-and-such." But they don"t explain it. She doesn"t exist any more totally. She"s no longer here.
The last place I worked for, I was let go. I told the people I worked with, "If anybody asks, tell them I got fired and give them my phone number." One of my friends stopped by and asked where I was at. They said, "She"s no longer with us." That"s all. I vanished.
When it happened, it was such an abrupt thing. I hadn"t really expected it. I was supposed to be an example so that these things wouldn"t occur any more. One of the factors was a man I wasn"t getting along with. He worked out at the desk. He was-how can I put it?-he was a very handsy person. He was that way towards everybody. I didn"t like it. He"d always pick out a time when you were balancing or you were trying to figure something out. You didn"t want to be interrupted. At other times, you wouldn"t mind, you"d laugh it off.
The reason I was given for being fired was that I was absent too much and had been tardy too often. But I think there was really another reason. The girl who was supervisor was leaving and I was next in seniority. I just don"t think they were going to let me go further.
With her the job was everything, it was her whole life. She would stay there till seven in the evening if something went wrong, and come in on Sat.u.r.days if they asked her to. When I was done-I"m sorry, I was done for the day.
And I was very open about being different. It started when one of the girls had brought in a little sticker-thing for Valentine"s Day. I thought they were cute. So I had just taken a couple of hearts out of one and put it on my name sign on the window, "cause I liked it. There was never anything really said except "How come that"s there?" And I said, " "Cause I like it." A lot of customers"d come in and say, "Wow! She had hearts on her window, she must be a nice girl." It gave them an opportunity to have something to say instead of just feeling they didn"t know you and didn"t quite know what to say. I think the bank didn"t care for that too much. They want everybody to be pretty much the same, kind of conservative, fitting into the norm. I think that was the real reason I was let go.
I think a lot of places don"t want people to be people. I think they want you to almost be the machines they"re working with. They just want to dehumanize you. Just like when you walk in in the morning, you put the switch on and here you are: "I am a robot. This is what I do. Good morning. How are you? May I help you?" I hate having to deal with people like that.
In some way, I feel my job"s important. Especially when you work with people who are trying to save money. It"s gratifying for them when they give you the stuff and you mark in their book and there it is-wow! I"ve accomplished this. And you say, "I"m glad to see you again. You"re really doing well." Most of these people here work in restaurants downtown and are secretaries. Lower middle cla.s.s and a lot of blacks come in this bank. They"re a lot more friendly than some of your other people, who are so busy trying to impress one another.
They don"t even recognize you. It"s like I"m almost being treated as a machine. They don"t have time to bother. After all, you"re just a peon. I had a black man come up to my window and say, "It"s really nice to see somebody working in a place like this who"s even halfway relevant." And I thought-wow! (Laughs.) I had my hair up like in little ponytails on the side and just had a pullover sweater and a skirt on and wasn"t really dressed up. I was very taken aback by it. It"s the first compliment I had in a long time. It"s nice to be recognized. Most places, it"s your full name on the window. Some places just have Miss or Mrs. So-and-so. I prefer giving my whole name so people can call me Nancy. (Laughs.) They feel a little more comfortable. Certain officers you refer to by their first names. Other people you don"t. Some people you would feel kind of weird saying, "Hey, Charlie, would you come over here and do this for me?" Other people you"d feel strange calling them by their proper name. All men who sit at the desk in the office you refer to as Mister. Okay, he"s a vice president, he must be called Mr. So-and-so. Whereas you"re just a teller. Therefore he can call you by your first name. Smaller banks tend to be more friendly and open.
When I tell people at a party I work for a bank, most of them get interested. They say, "What do you do?" I say, "I"m a teller." They say, "Oh, hmm, okay," and walk away. I remember getting into a discussion with one person about the war. We were disagreeing. He was for it. I wasn"t getting angry because I thought he has his right to his point of view. But the man couldn"t recognize that I had the right to mine. The thing finally was thrown at me: "What do you mean saying that? After all, who are you? I own my own business, you just work in a crummy bank." It doesn"t compute. Like, unless you"re capable of making it in the business world, you don"t have a right to an opinion. (Laughs.) My job doesn"t have prestige. It"s a service job. Whether you"re a waitress, salesperson, anything like that-working directly for the public-it"s not quite looked on as being prestigious. You are there to serve them. They are not there to serve you. Like a housemaid or a servant.
One of the girls said, "People who go through four years of college should have it recognized that they have achieved something." A man said, "Don"t you think someone who becomes an auto mechanic and is good at it should also be recognized? He"s a specialist, too, like the man who goes to be a doctor." Yet he"s not thought of that way. What difference? It"s a shame that people aren"t looked at as each job being special unto itself. I can"t work on a car, yet I see people who can do it beautifully. Like they have such a feel for it. Some people can write books, other people can do marvelous things in other ways . . .
FRED ROMAN.
I usually say I"m an accountant. Most people think it"s somebody who sits there with a green eyeshade and his sleeves rolled up with a garter, poring over books, adding things-with gla.s.ses. (Laughs.) I suppose a certified public accountant has status. It doesn"t mean much to me. Do I like the job or don"t I? That"s important.
He is twenty-five and works for one of the largest public accounting firms in the world. It employs twelve hundred people. He has been with the company three years. During his first year, after graduating from college, he worked for a food chain, doing inventory.
The company I work for doesn"t make a product. We provide a service. Our service is auditing. We are usually hired by stockholders or the board of directors. We will certify whether a company"s financial statement is correct. They"ll say, "This is what we did last year. We made X amount of dollars." We will come in to examine the books and say, "Yes, they did."
We"re looking for things that didn"t go out the door the wrong way. Our clients could say, "We have a million dollars in accounts receivable." We make sure that they do, in fact, have a million dollars and not a thousand. We ask the people who owe the money, "Do you, in fact, owe our client two thousand dollars as of this date?" We do it on a spot check basis. Some companies have five thousand individual accounts receivable. We"ll maybe test a hundred.
We"re also looking for things such as floating of cash. If a company writes a check one day and deposits money the next day, it tells you something of its solvency. We look for transfers between accounts to make sure they"re not floating these things-a hundred thousand dollars they keep working back and forth between two banks. (Laughs.) We work with figures, but we have to keep in mind what"s behind those figures. What bugs me about people in my work is that they get too wrapped up in numbers. To them a financial statement is the end. To me, it"s a tool used by management or stockholders.
We have a computer. We call it Audex. It has taken the detail drudgery out of accounting. I use things that come out of the computer in my everyday work. An accountant will prepare things for keypunching. A girl will keypunch and it will go into the monster. That"s what we call it. (Laughs.) You still have to audit what comes out of the computer. I work with pencils. We all do. I think that"s "cause we make so many mistakes. (Laughs.) You"re an auditor. The term scares people. They believe you"re there to see if they"re stealing nickels and dimes out of petty cash. We"re not concerned with that. But people have that image of us. They think we"re there to spy on them. What we"re really doing is making sure things are reported correctly. I don"t care if somebody"s stealing money as long as he reports it. (Laughs.) People look at you with fear and suspicion. The girl who does accounts receivable never saw an auditor before. The comptroller knows why you"re there and he"ll cooperate. But it"s the guy down the line who is not sure and worries. You ask him a lot of questions. What does he do? How does he do it? Are you after his job? Are you trying to get him fired? He"s not very friendly.
We"re supposed to be independent. We"re supposed to certify their books are correct. We"ll certify this to the Securities Exchange Commission, to the stockholders, to the banks. They"ll all use our financial statements. But if we slight the company-if I find something that"s going to take away five hundred thousand dollars of income this year-they may not hire us back next year.
I"m not involved in keeping clients or getting them. That"s the responsibility of the manager or the partner. I"m almost at the bottom of the heap. I"m the top cla.s.s of a.s.sistant. There are five levels. I"m a staff a.s.sistant. Above me is senior. Senior"s in charge of the job, out in the field with the client. The next level is manager. He has over-all responsibility for the client. He"s in charge of billing. The next step is partner. That"s tops. He has an interest in the company. Our owners are called partners. They have final responsibility. The partner decides whether this five hundred thousand dollars is going to go or stay on the books.
There are gray areas. Say I saw that five hundred thousand dollars as a bad debt. The client may say, "Oh, the guy"s good for it. He"s going to pay." You say, "He hasn"t paid you anything for the past six months. He declared bankruptcy yesterday. How can you say he"s gonna pay?" Your client says, "He"s reorganizing and he gonna get the money." You"ve got two ways of looking at this. The guy"s able to pay or he"s not. Somebody"s gotta make a decision. Are we gonna allow you to show this receivable or are we gonna make you write it off? We usually compromise. We try to work out something in-between. The company knows more about it than we do, right? But we do have to issue an independent report. Anyway, I"m not a partner who makes those decisions. (Laughs.) I think I"ll leave before I get there. Many people in our firm don"t plan on sticking around. The pressure. The constant rush to get things done. Since I"ve been here, two people have had nervous breakdowns. I have three bosses on any job, but I don"t know who"s my boss next week. I might be working for somebody else.
Our firm has a philosophy of progress, up or out. I started three years ago. If that second year I didn"t move from SA3, staff a.s.sistant, to SA4, I"d be out. Last June I was SA4. If I hadn"t moved to SA5, I"d be out. Next year if I don"t move to senior, I"ll be out. When I make senior I"ll be Senior-4. The following year, Senior2. Then Senior3, Then manager-or out. By the time I"m thirty-four or so, I"m a partner or I"m out.
When a partner reaches fifty-five he no longer has direct client responsibility. He doesn"t move out, because he"s now part owner of the company. He"s in an advisory capacity. They"re not retired. They"re just-just doing research. I"m not saying this is good or bad. This is just how it is.
It"s a very young field. You have a lot of them at the bottom to do the footwork. Then it pyramids and you don"t need so many up there. Most of the people they get are just out of college. I can"t label them-the range is broad-but I"d guess most of them are conservative. Politics is hardly discussed.
Fifteen years ago, public accountants wore white shirts. You had to wear a hat, so you could convey a conservative image. When I was in college the big joke was: If you"re going to work for a public accounting firm, make sure you buy a good supply of white shirts and a hat. They"ve gotten away from that since. We have guys with long hair. But they do catch more static than somebody in another business. And now we have women. There are several female a.s.sistants and seniors. There"s one woman manager. We have no female partners.
If you don"t advance, they"ll help you find another job. They"re very nice about it. They"ll fire you, but they just don"t throw you out in the street. (Laughs.) They"ll try to find you a job with one of our clients. There"s a theory behind it. Say I leave to go to XYZ Manfacturing Company. In fifteen years, I"m comptroller and I need an audit. Who am I gonna go to? Although their philosophy is up or out, they treat their employees very well.
Is my job important? It"s a question I ask myself. It"s important to people who use financial statements, who buy stocks. It"s important to banks. (Pause.) I"m not out combatting pollution or anything like that. Whether it"s important to society . . . (A long pause.) No, not too important. It"s necessary in this economy, based on big business. I don"t think most of the others at the firm share my views. (Laughs.) I have a couple friends there. We get together and talk once in a while. At first you"re afraid to say anything "cause you think the guy really loves it. You don"t want to say, "I hate it." But then you hear the guy say, "Boy! If it weren"t for the money I"d quit right now."
I"d like to go back to college and get a master"s or Ph.D. and become a college teacher. The only problem is I don"t think I have the smarts for it. When I was in high school I thought I"d be an engineer. So I took math, chemistry, physics, and got my D"s. I thought of being a history major. Then I said, "What will I do with a degree in history?" I thought of poli sci. I thought most about going into law. I still think about that. I chose accounting for a very poor reason. I eliminated everything else. Even after I pa.s.sed my test as a CPA I was saying all along, "I don"t want to be an accountant." (Laughs.) I"m young enough. After June I can look around. As for salary, I"m well ahead of my contemporaries. I"m well ahead of those in teaching and slightly ahead of those in engineering. But that isn"t it . . .
When people ask what I do, I tell them I"m an accountant. It sounds better than auditor, doesn"t it? (Laughs.) But it"s not a very exciting business. What can you say about figures? (Laughs.) You tell people you"re an accountant-(his voice deliberately a.s.sumes a dull monotone) "Oh, that"s nice." They don"t know quite what to say. (Laughs.) What can you say? I could say, "Wow! I saw this company yesterday and their balance sheet, wow!" (Laughs.) Maybe I look at it wrong. (Slowly, emphasizing each word) There just isn"t much to talk about.
FOOTWORK.
JACK SPIEGEL.
He is an organizer for the United Shoe Workers of America.
"About sixty percent in the industry are women. In some shops it goes as high as seventy percent. A great many are Spanish-speaking and blacks. It"s low paying work. The average wage in the shoe industry today is a little over a hundred dollars a week. There are all kinds of work stoppages. Even conservative workers are militant in the shops.
"Traditionally the shoe industry has been on piecework. We discourage it and, in many cases, struggle with our own people. They can pick up twenty-five, thirty percent over their time week. But we don"t accept the philosophy that you"ve got to work till you drop.
"Small shops are going out of business because they can"t compete with the giants. There"s been a lot of mergers in the shoe industry. Importation has cut into a third of the shoes being sold in our country. Shoes are brought in from Spain, j.a.pan, Italy . . . The average wage in this country is $2.60. In Italy it is $1.10.
"The same manufacturers who exploit here open up factories there, bring the shoes in here, finish "em in some places, and put a "Made in America" label on them. The consumer thinks he"s getting a break. They get it a little cheaper, but the quality and workmanship may not be as good.
"Up to about twelve years ago, we had about a quarter of a million workers. There are now less than 170,000. In the next ten, fifteen years it may diminish to less than fifty thousand. What happened to watchmaking may happen to us. It"s happened to textiles, too, where half the workers have lost their jobs in the past twenty years.
"If some measures aren"t taken by the government to tax those who send money out and establish those factories in other countries, and take jobs away from people here, it will be good-bye to the American shoe industry. Those in their sixties will retire. Those who are still able to work will find it more difficult."
ALICE WASHINGTON.
She works in the warehouse of the Florsheim Shoe Company. She is an order filler. "When I first started it was hard, but after nine years you get used to it." She is secretary-treasurer of the union local. "I have five children at home."
You go to different aisles or bins, you just pull out shoes according to your order. You have your AS orders43 and your regular orders. You have rushes. You"d get an order in a folder for about two hundred to seven hundred pair of shoes. Oh, just all different types of orders.
I am walking all day long. Usually we work two hours overtime, which is until six ". We work five hours on Sat.u.r.day. All day long I"m on my feet. I"ve thought about it seriously and I"m gonna sit down and try to figure out just exactly how many miles I do walk within a week. To me, it"s about fifty miles a day. (Laughs.) I feel the exercise is good for me but it hasn"t done anything for me. (Laughs.) After listening to doctors and different books that you read, they say walking is very healthy for you. Yeah? Do I look like I lost weight? That"s what"s disgusting. (Laughs.) It"s not only the walking. It"s the reaching, the bending. I mean, you get a great amount of exercise in all areas. Say, for instance, you wanted 20292. I know it"s in Zone Three or Four. Say your size is 8 B. Maybe 8 B is extremely high. I have to reach up and get a ladder. Or maybe it"s very low. I have to bend down and bring the shoe out.
You push around a rack all day. It"s a big steel rack, which normally holds 208 pairs of shoes. You complete your rack. You count your shoes. You make out your ticket. Some orders are very hard to fill, calling for odd sizes. I had two orders today that gave me a complete headache. If you put your mind to it and try to get those orders out, it"s nerve-racking. Some days I"m not as tired as I should be. There are other times when I get absolutely tired.
Right now I"m having a lot of trouble with my feet. Cement is bad on your feet anyway. The whole building is cement floor. I wear crepe-soled shoes. You can"t wear anything too flat. You have to have something slightly elevated to keep your heel up off the floor. You have a lot of young girls coming in and they say, "Don"t you ever complain about your feet? My feet are killing me." We have complained, yes. The management would say, "Get yourself the right-type shoe."
Most of the young girls are on the bonus system-piecework. You"re out there trying to make extra money besides the average rate. That"s a dull, steady pace all day long. Entirely too much. The other day we had a big rouse-up. Who"s getting the best orders, who"s not? Naturally they want the big orders where they can make their bonus money at the end of the month. Me myself, I"ll never go for it. I know in the long run I wouldn"t be able to keep up with it. I"m just there to do a day"s work.
I"ve often thought about a sit-down job, but I don"t know. Maybe it"s because I"m used to this. I have worked in checking. You check for mistakes after the picker has picked the shoes. You sat down all day long. Truthfully, I prefer walking. The sitting down seemed to bother my back.
She started working at seventeen as a chambermaid in a South Carolina motel. At eighteen she married. She worked in New York for three years, "at a business school. Part-time, six to ten. I was doing switchboard and comptometry. We had got in this bookkeeping machine. I worked the IBM, the comptometer, and the switchboard. I had time to get myself with it.
"When I came to Chicago I was looking for the type of office work I had been doing in New York. The places where I was applying, they wanted speed-so they said. I tried not to feel my color had anything to do with it. I went to a place downtown two, three times. I knew that switchboard as well as anybody. I watched her train a girl and I could hardly keep my hands out from showing the girl how to do it, by me knowing it so well. When I took the test for the job, the woman who was training me was so nasty, for no reason. She got me so upset, so nervous. I had to look at her two or three times. I said, "No, I won"t lose my temper. I"m trying to get a job." After the examination was over, she said, "If we have an opening we"ll let you know." (Laughs.) It couldn"t be nothin" but by color. (Laughs.) You hate to feel that, but . . . I couldn"t find anything. I have these children to support, so I was hired at the warehouse and have been here ever since."
I used to work overtime almost every day, but after my oldest son went off to college, I stopped. I could sort of rely on him to take care of the smaller kids. I take the bus home or, if I"m lucky, I catch a ride with some of the fellas that travel the same route. Every evening I fix dinner and see about the homework and that they"ve done things I told them to do before I leave in the morning. On Wednesday, I wash. We have a laundry room. I walk back and forth, washing, and I"m cooking all the time. Do you realize the walking that is done? On Wednesday evenings, I don"t get to bed until about eleven ". Some mornings I"m so tired. (Laughs.) But once I get up and wash my face and get stirred around, I"m in pretty good shape.
If you stop and daydream, you"re losing a lot of time picking up your shoes. When you hit that floor in the morning you say, "Well, I"m gonna get started with it and I"m gonna get through with it." If you constantly work and don"t pa.s.s off the time, messin" around, the time goes by. You turn around and look at your watch, Oh my goodness, it"s break time-or it"s lunch time or it"s time to go home.
During lunch we kid around with each other. We like to have a little fun. That takes the drudgery out of knowing you gotta hit the floor again. And to keep you from feeling tired. We discuss different things that we hear on the news, just things in general. Our main conversation is discussing the kids. If my child does something funny or bad, I tell it. If my coworkers" children do something, they tell it.
We get along very well with the office workers. Every time I go in, I always give them a good morning and I always try to have something funny to say. I don"t feel less than they do. In fact, we have a young lady, she"s in the office and she wants to come out on the floor because she"s not making enough money. You don"t make as much in the office as you would working in a factory.
For all that walking, I should be making at least five dollars an hour. I"m able to save very little, and I do mean very little. You have to pay rent, lights, and telephone bill. You have to clothe your children, you have to feed them. It"s very hard. If you get a nickel or two, something comes up and you have to spend it. My son just got off to college. Every time he picks up the telephone, this has got to be done, that has to be done . . . it"s rough.
How long will I be able to hold up at this? That is my main worry. That"s the reason I never bothered about the bonus. I knew as I became older I wouldn"t be able to continue. So I just worked along the pace that I was working. When I punch that clock in the morning I have a certain amount of work to get out because I"m being paid a day"s work. But to rip and run like these younger children . . . You have your nineteen-, twenty-year-olds -there"s two of us that are in age-these younger ones, they go partying and everything else and-boom!-right back to work the next morning. Me? I can"t do that.
Oh, sometimes I become very disgusted with myself and I say to myself, "Do I always have to walk like this?" Maybe I should strike out and do something else before I get too old. Age is a great barrier after you wait nine years and try to strike out and do something else. I say, "I can"t give up now. I have children in school." So . . . (a heavy sigh) it runs through my mind, I become very discouraged sometimes.
(Her face is transformed; she glows.) I would like to work with children, small children. I have thought several times of trying to set up a nursery, even if I didn"t start with but one or two children. That"s what I"d really like. I have thought about it very seriously. About two, three years ago, I mentioned it to some of the girls on the job. It"s not what you would charge a person, it"s just the idea of helping. This mother had to get out there. Believe me, it"s many of us that have to get out here. I mean have to get out and come a great distance and-have you ever gotten on a bus and see a mother with arms swinging and two, three children holding on to each hand, and she"s trying to get to that job? I"d like to work with children. That has been my real hopes in life.
JOHN FULLER.