Doing Life Together

My first real job, other than babysitting, was waiting on customers in a bakery. I started during my junior year in high school and continued there until I left home for college at Duquesne University. While at Duquesne, I pumped gas at a car wash (the Auto Spa) and I was an Avon lady in my dorm. While I was back home during the summer, I got a job at a dry cleaning store, because I wanted a job that I applied for by myself, rather than going back to the bakery, a job that my father got for me.

I stayed at Duquesne for three semesters, then transferred to Monmouth College (now Monmouth University) and moved back into my parent’s home. I went back to work at the dry cleaning store, then got laid off. I went to Monmouth Shopping Center (which soon became Monmouth Mall) and got myself a job at Kresge’s, a five and dime store. I often worked in the snack bar, which was very stressful, because a large part of that responsibility was making “super subs,” which we sold bazillions of during the lunch rush. There were a lot of construction workers working on the transition from shopping center to enclosed mall, and our super subs were the most economical lunch around. All of us who worked at the snack bar had recurring nightmares about running out of super subs during the lunch rush.

After that summer, I transferred again, this time to Glassboro State College (now Rowan University). This time I snagged an on-campus job in the music department library. Now, that was a job I loved. The library had sheet music and books that students could borrow, and a listening room where students could listen to music (on vinyl records) that their professors wanted them to become familiar with. I would check out music and books for students, and set them up with their records in the listening room. Also, the library was transitioning from the Dewey Decimal System to the Library of Congress System of organization, so I would assist the librarian by looking through catalogs to find the appropriate location code for each piece of music. As a result, I learned a lot about classical repertoire by osmosis. One day a flautist came into the library saying she was bored with all the music she was working on and wanted something new and different. I suggested some pieces by a composer whose work she’d never played before, and she was really excited to try it.

During winter break my senior year, Greg and I got married. When my last semester started, I lived in my off-campus apartment that I’d shared with two roommates during the week, and went home on the weekend, for four weeks, until I gave my senior recital. After that, my schedule was lighter, I gave up my spot in the apartment, and commuted to school only the two days I had classes, a three-hour commute each way. (I had taken a number of classes during the previous summer in an attempt to graduate early, but I didn’t think I had taken enough. It turned out I had plenty of credits, but my advisor couldn’t tell me how much of my Duquesne and Monmouth credits had transferred over. It turned out they all did. Doh!)

Once I was living full-time with my husband, I found a job at The Fabric Tree. I wish I could say that was a profitable job, but I often spent most of my paycheck on fabric, patterns, and sewing notions. The Fabric Tree offered me the manager’s position, but I turned it down. After graduation, I started applying to school districts, and by the end of the summer I signed a contract with Perth Amboy Public Schools to teach elementary general music. I resigned part-way into my fifth year as Greg and I started our family. Our plan was to have two kids, and when the second one was in first grade, I’d return to teaching. Except that we ended up having five kids. Oops.

I tried working part-time evenings at Jamesway, but Greg was not happy taking care of a baby all by himself. For a while, I was a representative for Creative Circle, teaching needlecrafts and selling needlecraft kits. Sometimes I took the baby with me; sometimes not. Greg was unhappy if he had baby duty.

Greg was a teacher, and during the summer he worked for the district painting classes for $7 an hour. (This was in the 1980s.) I discovered I could work temp jobs for $10 an hour, so I told him to stay home with the kids (they were older then) and I would work. I maintained physician files for Humana for two summers. It felt great to be earning money, but it felt even better to be home again when Greg’s school started back up.

One thing I really wanted to do was write. When my youngest child went to first grade, instead of going back to teaching, I decided to be a freelance writer. During the 1990s I had a bunch of articles published in Raising Arizona Kids magazine and Christian Library Journal, among other publications, but not enough to make a significant contribution to our family’s finances. We went to a credit counselor, who figured out that our monthly expenses were about $600 more than what Greg earned as a teacher. Greg said he’d get a second job, but that wasn’t fair. Teaching is a very demanding job. You come home from work exhausted. Besides, our kids needed some Daddy time. So Greg asked me if I could find a job that paid $600 a month.

At the time, we belonged to a small church of about 100 people. At every Sunday service, we were asked if anyone needed prayer. I shared that I needed a job. After the service, one of my friends told me they needed help at her office and told me how to apply. And that’s how I got my job at the Bureau of Land Management. I was hired as a file clerk, and I eventually became a procurement assistant. I loved that job. I worked with some of the smartest and kindest people I’d ever met. I didn’t realize the high caliber of federal employees. My coworkers cared so much about the people and animals and land that they served. I worked there for five years, the longest I’d ever worked at the same job up until that time.

And then I got the writing bug again. I’d been working on a book, and I thought if I had more time, I’d finish the book and get it published. I treated myself to a writer’s conference in Maui (actually, Greg paid for the conference, I paid for the flight and hotel and car rental) and I met a couple of agents who showed interest in the book.

So I resigned from the BLM. I “finished” the book. Both agents passed on it. The book really needed a lot more work, but the money I’d saved up as a cushion ran out, and I needed to find work again.

This is where my memory gets hazy as to sequence. I took a job as a directory assistance agent (people would call asking for phone numbers, in the days before everyone had cellphones, when landlines ruled and people had phone directories from the phone company, but only for their area), but I can’t remember if that was before working for the BLM or after. (Probably before.) I resigned from that job because they wanted me to handle calls very quickly, to the point where a manager modeled how to handle a confused elderly caller by berating him. I could not stand to work where being kind and patient was discouraged.

I worked for Pearson Educational Measurement as a part-time scorer of short essay answers on standardized tests.

Then I worked as a Patient Care Advocate for Express Scripts, where I entered refill requests and provided customer service concerning prescription benefits. I was very excited about that job during the training, but the reality was very stressful. If a mistake was made, it took two days to correct it, which mean that patients would be without their medication for that interval. I finally decided that if I had to work at a high-stress job, I ought to go back to teaching, because at least I’d be using my college degrees.

I worked a portion of a year in a balance-of-year contract for an elementary general music position that had been filled by substitutes, 27 years after my Perth Amboy teaching position. Then the district decided not to rehire me for the following year, but the administrative assistant suggested I apply in the Chandler district, which I did, and I got a job there. It was my favorite job ever for the first five years, but then the climate changed. I stayed three more years and finally resigned, thinking I’d find a nice office job like the one I had at the BLM, a job that I wouldn’t have to take home with me.

I applied for 100 jobs over the next year. I was on the short list twice, but each time they hired a younger candidate. It’s hard to get a job in your 60s.

So since then, I’ve worked my butt off without pay, most recently as my husband’s full-time caretaker. I’ve written and gotten a couple of short pieces and one poem published. And I’ve blogged for about eleven years, but I’m definitely slowing down.