Cutting Through Red Tape
Since graduating from college, most of the jobs I’ve had were fulfilling and at times challenging (I’ve previously written about my years of teaching). However, two positions stand out as absolutely AWFUL.
In June, 1961, just after getting my B.A. in history, I was willing to take almost anything. Not enough education hours to teach. And what else do you do with a history degree? I was considered for a job with Girl Scouts of America, but I didn’t have the needed transportation.
Many years before the internet and Linkedin, the only place to seek job information was at the Kansas State Employment Service in Kansas City, Kansas. I interviewed, completed forms at this office and waited. Fortunately, the assistant manager at the Employment Service offered me a job as an Interviewer at that office! I would be helping people find work in the service and nursing industries. Since it was a civil service job, I was required to take and pass a test. How to study? No way. Just wing it. Took the bus to Topeka, completed the test and passed.
The job sounded glamourous, but was really tedious and tense. The national civil rights movement was in full swing and the Kansas Civil Rights Commission of 1961 forbade job discrimination based on color. Some employers would call with job openings, but would stipulate NO BLACKS. I, however, felt a moral obligation to honor the law and not discriminate. But if I sent a person of color to a job interview, that would be a disaster, too.
So the management invented a cryptic code whereby we would note whether the prospective employee was Black. I guess state officers could have come in, discovered the code and we’d have been in trouble. Such stress.
To be fair, this job introduced me to the world. For the first time, I worked with lots of men. My high school job was with nuns and other women. Same with college. Here, I encountered people with different political views, religions, and racial backgrounds, and learned to be compassionate toward people seeking jobs, especially brown men standing in line hoping to be chosen for a day job.
Thirty-something years later, I accepted a job at the Environmental Protection Agency in Public Affairs. Again, this appealed to my ego. I was hired to complete a writing project. Someone had gathered loosely assembled notes and graphics for the purpose of writing a resource book for school age children about the environment. But the project was never completed. Right down my alley. However, as I delved into the project and talked to EPA employees who were knowledgeable about the project, I became disheartened. The partially completed info lacked citations and copyright information. I was even in touch with a copyright lawyer in DC. I wrote some original copy, but, in the end, quit the job. It was impossible to recreate and complete.
The physical and psychological environment of these jobs was sterile. Employees glaring at computers all day. Folks hanging on until retirement. Metal desks, cubicles, fold up chairs and concrete block walls. I Give me teaching any day! Beautiful bulletin boards. A shared sense of mission. Close friendships.
