Christmas Countdown 2023 …. Day 18

Well, here we are in the last week of the Countdown. I can’t believe it. That means only five more stories from the archives of the variety of part time jobs that have been my “career” of choice. Thanks for hanging in there with me as I have randomly thrown memories at you each day. It has been a new kind of writing challenge for me and I hope you have enjoyed it. I have heard from a few of you that it has triggered memories in you of your own past jobs. That makes my heart happy. Others have just been entertained. This is also good. So here we go with the final lap of this race. Thank you for joining me. 

When Russ and I moved to the town we still call home, we were fresh out of college. Russ had landed a job with Archer Daniels Midland Company and I landed in the middle of a recession with a degree in Consumer and Family Sciences. Okay. Not exactly practical, but it got me a diploma. 

We settled into an apartment and I began hunting for a job. I discovered quickly that my degree made me overqualified for most jobs and my lack of experience made me under qualified for others. What few jobs there were, that is. 

After several months of searching I was told some secretarial skills might help me find at least an administrative job. I enrolled in our local community college to learn typing and shorthand.

Shorthand.

Anyone younger than sixty probably has no idea what I am talking about 

Shorthand was a system of using symbols to take dictation from a speaker, your boss, as he (yes, usually “he”) dictated letters, documents and other communications that you would then go and type.

On a typewriter.

It was the dark ages. 

I actually enjoyed the classes, but also was busy applying for jobs. Before I could complete the full semester I applied for a job in commercial loans at one of the big banks in town and was hired.

I started my job working in one of two teller windows on the commercial loan side of the bank. The other teller was the same age as me and we hit it off immediately. Being a loan teller involved taking payments from various businesses in town and recording them accurately. When we weren’t doing that, we were discussing the last episode of Dallas or what we were going to do on our lunch break.

A third teller worked with us. This woman took care of escrow payments and was decades older than us. She and I did not bond immediately, but she didn’t really seem to bond with anyone except her customers. They loved her. The rest of us just were very careful around her. 

While commercial loan payments were processed through a computer that we shared, the escrow payments were all done on small paper tickets in a file. We had to record the payment and stamp the entry with a date and then there was always and forever a stack that needed to be filed back in. Oddly, I remember doing this more often than my own job.

Our days were filled with taking payments and working with some kind of files that seemed to multiply. Also we spent a fair amount of time running copies for the various loan officers who, like me, had a college degree and yet were incapable of running a copy machine. Throughout the day we would be interrupted in our tasks to go make copies. In dress shoes. I am not bitter. I am better. Now that I have had enough years to heal.

It was a different world, my friends.

Besides learning the bank duties, I was also informed of the birthday schedule. We had a party in the conference room near the birth date of each person in our department. They got to select a favorite cake and, much to my chagrin, these people were talking about real cakes.

I grew up in a home where cakes came from the bakery or a box mix. Suddenly I was introduced to the world of Red Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake, Mandarin Orange Cake….all from scratch. My first assignment was a Red Velvet Cake. If you are not familiar, this called for some pricey ingredients including multiple bottles of red food coloring. 

I was making minimum wage and we were saving for a house, but there I was at the store purchasing the supplies to make my first ever from scratch cake. Okay. I had made a Bûche de Noël in high school, but this was serious baking. It was quite an accomplishment and I did okay, but it didn’t take long to notice that the cycle of cake baking circled back quickly. 

We had three tellers, a receptionist, a part time filing person, a boss, and five loan officers. All but the boss and four loan officers were women. And yes we women, including the female loan officer, were the only ones who provided the cakes.

 Apparently none of the people in this department had never seen the movies, read the articles or had the conversations I had had leading up to this point. None of the women thought it strange that the men never had to provide a cake. None of the women thought it odd that we went in after the men to have our turn to have a piece of the cake we had made on party days. 

As I said. A different time. 

Still with all of that, I did love working there. The people I worked with were like family in many ways. The men were good men, even if they were a product of a business mindset that wasn’t good. They were kind and work was enjoyable because of the relationships. Even the one kind of prickly one made us laugh at times and even she had her good sides. 

I learned a lot about the discipline of a daily job and taking pride in my work. I learned about being professional in caring for customers. I made some sweet friends who are dear to my heart.

It was hard in some ways to leave when I decided to be a stay home mom. I understand from that experience how working in a place for a long time has great rewards. The relationships are the main part when it is all said and done, but the work itself also can give you a framework of meaning and purpose. 

That has been something my part time jobs have given for a season and there are times I wonder what it would have felt like to have been a part of at team for an extended period of time. I hope if that is your experience, even in the daily grind, you can appreciate the value of this as a gift that has been given to you. I hope you can see the value of the relationships you have built and the work you have accomplished and that you matter to the team. Work is a gift, wherever we are called to do it.