-
Chapter 15
- Texas A&M University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
{Chapter 15} I tried to psych myself into a positive frame of mind for my first job interview . My best shot, it seemed to me, was applying at the same insurance company for which I had processed major medical claims in Houston two years earlier. I bypassed the personnel office and contacted the claims supervisor directly. Sounding pleased to hear from an experienced applicant , she scheduled me immediately. Unfortunately, the office was in the newest downtown skyscraper at the end of a disorienting bus trip that dumped me in the heart of the financial district like Alice into the oversized garden. I felt dwarfed in the shadowed streets and even smaller when I entered the cavernous marble lobby. Standing beside the directory, I fought the urge to turn and run. Only the realization that I didn’t know which bus to take home kept me planted in place. That, and the fact that I had a two o’clock appointment with the manager. I pushed the elevator button and took many deep breaths, reminding myself that if the company had any openings in claims, I was certainly qualified. I threw back my shoulders and prepared to step into the elevator when the bell softly dinged. Rising more than thirty floors above San Francisco should have been an uneventful whisk to the top. I should then have been able to confidently stride into the interview and stake my own claim on the next available position. Unfortunately, I was in an office building that was not yet completed, unbeknownst to me. Only after I stepped into the elevator and the door closed did I realize that I was not riding in a self-contained box but rather standing on a plywood platform with canvas-draped sides. As I flew upward, I felt my stomach drop through my toes and watched in July 1969 [113] horror as the canvas rippled in the wind of the shaft, the bottom edge whipping back and forth across the flooring. I couldn’t tell if the resulting nausea came from the express ascension or the terror of soaring into space on a piece of plywood. Needing desperately to steady myself, I staggered forward, automatically reaching for the railing—only to jerk my hand back just in time to keep myself from careening into the canvas and smearing my face against the swiftly passing shaft wall. I was still lurching for balance when the elevator came suddenly to a stop, causing my stomach to snap with such a force I lost my breath. When the door opened, I staggered onto the terra firma of industrial carpeting and clung weakly to the cool marble wall. What was I doing here? I didn’t want this damned job—especially if it meant enduring such torture just to get here. The manager was a woman somewhat younger than I expected. Wearing an inexpensive gray tailored suit with her brown hair pulled pragmatically back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, she exuded the efficiency and strain typical of her circumstances and no-nonsense position . She smiled pleasantly when I introduced myself, but then as her eyes scanned my blossoming body, the lines on her face fell in reflection. I knew that she had instantly decided that she would go through the motions of an interview with no intention of making an offer. She asked about my experience, but this encounter had nothing to do with qualifications , as we were both painfully aware. When I made the purposeful point of telling her my husband was in Vietnam, the never-to-be-done deal was sealed. I watched as she bristled. “I’ll certainly keep you in mind,” she said. “Thank you for coming in.” At least the interview was over. I could honestly write Lee that I had tried to find a job. This woman’s reaction to my condition would only be repeated everywhere I went. What a fool I was to think anyone would hire me. Now I had to summon the courage to spend a few more seconds aboard the raft in the wall and then find the wherewithal to determine which bus to take to Susan’s work place. At the bank I found Susan in her dungeon basement cubby hole. I pushed open the door to find a small windowless room literally flooded shoulder-high in paper. Susan sat hunched over behind stacks of tilting envelopes, robotically gutting them one at a time and separating...