| Biographical Non-Fiction posted April 27, 2020 | Chapters: |
...28 29 -30- 31... 
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A need to help support the family sends me back to work.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Back In the Job Market
by BethShelby
| Background My husband and I have three children, twins two and and a daughter, four. We're concerned my husband's company may lay off more people off, so I decide to look for work in case he gets without a job. |
You hated the idea of me going back to work. You felt you needed to be the one to support the family. At the same time, you realized we needed some backup in case you were laid off. Rumors of further layoffs were still circulating. I told you I loved our children dearly, but I could use a break. The terrible twos were getting to me. I believed I could be a better mother spending quality time with them in the evenings, rather than being constantly exhausted and frustrated by too much together time. In the end, we decided it wouldn’t hurt to see what was out there.
As I scanned the paper for jobs, there was nothing available in my field. I did find an ad that preferred someone with a college degree, but didn’t mention previous experience as a requirement. A large printing company was looking for a proofreader. When I called about the job, I was told the applicants would be tested.
I went to the dictionary to see if I could get an idea of what proofreading involved. Then I remembered the back of the dictionary had a section on proofreading marks. There was a large number of symbols and words like “stet” and “dele”. I memorized them and made an appointment for an interview. I’d read tons of books all my life and the occasional errors which slipped past editors stood out. I could catch other people's errors, but not my own. When I reread something I had written, my brain saw what I meant to say rather than the typos I had made.
When I went in for the interview, I was taken into a small office and handed a couple of yards of newsprint about a foot wide covered with copy. The copy I was given was filled with mistakes. I had no trouble marking them up with my newly learned set of proofreading marks. At the time, I believed the many errors were put there deliberately to test the proofreader applicant's ability to catch them. I later learned this was freshly set type meant to be used in a manuscript. It was no wonder they needed a proofreader. After I handed back the corrected proof, I was called in and hired on the spot. I was told I was far better than anyone else they had interviewed.
The Personnel manager took me around and introduced me to the head of the typesetting department and showed me the machines used to set the type. I won’t pretend I ever understood the mysteries of the typesetting machines. They looked like something more suited for the nineteenth century. There were two types of printing, offset and lino-type, in use by this company. Hot lead was used for setting type. Some of the larger letters were already molded and filed in a cabinet. These large letters were set by hand. I’m pretty sure none of these methods are still used today, but this was 1963. The machines they were using appeared to have been in use for many years.
They were anxious for me to start right away. I asked for a day or two so I could make arrangements for childcare. Mrs. Burnside, the lady who had kept Carol as a baby, was willing to take all three temporarily, but she didn’t feel she could handle the twins full time at her age.
When I started the job the following week, I learned that one of the women in the front office had a maid she was letting go, because her children were older and no longer needed child care. She recommended her highly. So I got in touch with her, and she agreed to come to work for me.
The starting wage for the proofreading job was low, with a promise of a raise after a three week trial period. I was shocked to know that maids of that day were willing to work eight or nine hours a day for eighteen dollars a week. This maid had her own transportation. She did well with the children and even had a meal ready for us when we got home. Unfortunately, she only worked for us a couple of months, before she told us she’d found another job nearer her home. She knew another maid looking for a job, so we agreed to try her. This is when Mamie came into our lives.
After reading the recent book, “The Help”, in which maids during the same time period in Jackson, Mississippi were making one dollar per hour, I wonder if that might have been inaccurate. If they were making that much, they must have been working for very rich families. With a college degree, my starting salary wasn't much more than that.
The transition went well. Mamie was quiet and hard working. She didn’t cook our meals, but she was willing to do laundry, iron, and keep the house clean. Of course, her main task was to feed and care for the children. She had a male friend who dropped her off and picked her up every day. She was in her twenties and although she had no children of her own yet, she’d taken care of her younger siblings. She'd also cared for children before as a maid. There were no complaints from Carol who was four, so it seemed things were off to a good start. The twins weren’t talking well enough to express an opinion, but they seemed willing to go along.
My babies had decided they hated diapers, but they weren’t yet potty trained. These were the days before Velcro, so the cloth diapers were penned on with large diaper pins with ducks or bunny rabbits on the heads. The only way I’d been able to keep them diapered was to pull the plastic-lined panties over the diapers. When the weather was hot, this was uncomfortable. With nothing, other than pins, holding the diaper on, the twins worked at pushing off the diaper until one of the pins would come open. Then they would step out of them, risking getting scratched or stuck. Mamie worked hard to get them potty trained. Half the time, they were walking around with bare bottoms.
When I was home, in the late afternoons, Christi was ready to cuddle. Don gave me sloppy kisses and pulled the heads off any flower he could find growing to give me as a present. Carol knew by this time, I preferred my flowers with a bit of stem. She brought me pictures she had drawn and colored. I thanked them all profusely for their gifts of love.
Four of five guys from the drafting department did lose their jobs, but so far you were still there. It appeared that maybe they had laid off all they planned to in the drafting department. We relaxed to some extent. It looked as though you’d dodged that bullet. Without the stress of worrying about unemployment, you seemed to be enjoying more time with our children. Don followed you around like a puppy.
The first day I worked, they put me in a small room with a desk and some shelves. I learned that it had been the work room of the company artist. She had left with the onset of an illness and had decided not to return, since she was approaching retirement age. With no on site-artist, the company was sending their artwork to an agency.
The proofs for reading came in at various times throughout the day, and part of the time, I would catch up and be without anything to do. As soon as the plant manager discovered I had a degree in art, he suggested to the company CEO that I could save the company money by doing both art work and proofreading. They decided to give it a try. Soon I was designing logos and letterheads and doing paste-up as well as the work I was originally hired to do.
It didn’t take me long to learn the plant manager, Robert, was too free with his hands when he got near me. I was determined not to let another man cause me to have to leave a job. I liked what I was doing, and I wanted to stay. Robert’s wife worked in the front office in sales, and she didn’t seem concerned with his activities. I decided some people are just touchers and that I’d have to learn to deal with it. Becky, his wife, was nice looking, and didn’t appear to be threatened by her husband's fondness for touching other women.
There were some other things I learned about this job as time went on. While the plant was large, and there were still a lot of employees, many people had recently left to take other jobs. In fact, the entire department of camera and stripping had emptied out. There was only one full time employee in that department, and he’d only been there for about a month. Other than the presses, this was one of the most essential departments in a printing company.
I also found out that Robert had only recently joined the company. He had run a small printing company out of his home. When he joined this company, he brought everyone from his own company with him. This included two of his brothers, his wife, and Dave, an older Cajun man from South Louisiana. Dave was the lone employee now in the camera/stripping department. No one told me anything, but I sensed an undercurrent of secrecy that wasn't to be mentioned around new employees.
One day, Robert came into my office and told me to drop whatever I was doing because there was a big rush job to print and Dave needed help. He told me he needed me to work in the stripping department. I didn’t know anything about stripping but he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.” so I acquired yet another job.
The stripping job involved working with large negatives of type and pictures that had to be taped into proper position onto yellow masking sheets. He started me out with an easy job. When the negatives were laid on a light table they were covered with tiny pinpoints of light that was caused by dust particles. All of these spots had to be covered so they wouldn’t show on the final print. He gave me a small watercolor brush and some brown liquid and told me to paint all the spots out and be careful to avoid the type. This was something I had no problem doing, but the job was time consuming. My other two jobs still had to be done as well. It was a matter of who needed what done first.
From that day on, the proofs and art jobs were brought to the stripping department and I was told how much time I would have to get them done. It wouldn’t be long before I would be expected to do many more tasks. Fortunately, I was fascinated with the printing process and was eager to learn all I could.
As I scanned the paper for jobs, there was nothing available in my field. I did find an ad that preferred someone with a college degree, but didn’t mention previous experience as a requirement. A large printing company was looking for a proofreader. When I called about the job, I was told the applicants would be tested.
I went to the dictionary to see if I could get an idea of what proofreading involved. Then I remembered the back of the dictionary had a section on proofreading marks. There was a large number of symbols and words like “stet” and “dele”. I memorized them and made an appointment for an interview. I’d read tons of books all my life and the occasional errors which slipped past editors stood out. I could catch other people's errors, but not my own. When I reread something I had written, my brain saw what I meant to say rather than the typos I had made.
When I went in for the interview, I was taken into a small office and handed a couple of yards of newsprint about a foot wide covered with copy. The copy I was given was filled with mistakes. I had no trouble marking them up with my newly learned set of proofreading marks. At the time, I believed the many errors were put there deliberately to test the proofreader applicant's ability to catch them. I later learned this was freshly set type meant to be used in a manuscript. It was no wonder they needed a proofreader. After I handed back the corrected proof, I was called in and hired on the spot. I was told I was far better than anyone else they had interviewed.
The Personnel manager took me around and introduced me to the head of the typesetting department and showed me the machines used to set the type. I won’t pretend I ever understood the mysteries of the typesetting machines. They looked like something more suited for the nineteenth century. There were two types of printing, offset and lino-type, in use by this company. Hot lead was used for setting type. Some of the larger letters were already molded and filed in a cabinet. These large letters were set by hand. I’m pretty sure none of these methods are still used today, but this was 1963. The machines they were using appeared to have been in use for many years.
They were anxious for me to start right away. I asked for a day or two so I could make arrangements for childcare. Mrs. Burnside, the lady who had kept Carol as a baby, was willing to take all three temporarily, but she didn’t feel she could handle the twins full time at her age.
When I started the job the following week, I learned that one of the women in the front office had a maid she was letting go, because her children were older and no longer needed child care. She recommended her highly. So I got in touch with her, and she agreed to come to work for me.
The starting wage for the proofreading job was low, with a promise of a raise after a three week trial period. I was shocked to know that maids of that day were willing to work eight or nine hours a day for eighteen dollars a week. This maid had her own transportation. She did well with the children and even had a meal ready for us when we got home. Unfortunately, she only worked for us a couple of months, before she told us she’d found another job nearer her home. She knew another maid looking for a job, so we agreed to try her. This is when Mamie came into our lives.
After reading the recent book, “The Help”, in which maids during the same time period in Jackson, Mississippi were making one dollar per hour, I wonder if that might have been inaccurate. If they were making that much, they must have been working for very rich families. With a college degree, my starting salary wasn't much more than that.
The transition went well. Mamie was quiet and hard working. She didn’t cook our meals, but she was willing to do laundry, iron, and keep the house clean. Of course, her main task was to feed and care for the children. She had a male friend who dropped her off and picked her up every day. She was in her twenties and although she had no children of her own yet, she’d taken care of her younger siblings. She'd also cared for children before as a maid. There were no complaints from Carol who was four, so it seemed things were off to a good start. The twins weren’t talking well enough to express an opinion, but they seemed willing to go along.
My babies had decided they hated diapers, but they weren’t yet potty trained. These were the days before Velcro, so the cloth diapers were penned on with large diaper pins with ducks or bunny rabbits on the heads. The only way I’d been able to keep them diapered was to pull the plastic-lined panties over the diapers. When the weather was hot, this was uncomfortable. With nothing, other than pins, holding the diaper on, the twins worked at pushing off the diaper until one of the pins would come open. Then they would step out of them, risking getting scratched or stuck. Mamie worked hard to get them potty trained. Half the time, they were walking around with bare bottoms.
When I was home, in the late afternoons, Christi was ready to cuddle. Don gave me sloppy kisses and pulled the heads off any flower he could find growing to give me as a present. Carol knew by this time, I preferred my flowers with a bit of stem. She brought me pictures she had drawn and colored. I thanked them all profusely for their gifts of love.
Four of five guys from the drafting department did lose their jobs, but so far you were still there. It appeared that maybe they had laid off all they planned to in the drafting department. We relaxed to some extent. It looked as though you’d dodged that bullet. Without the stress of worrying about unemployment, you seemed to be enjoying more time with our children. Don followed you around like a puppy.
The first day I worked, they put me in a small room with a desk and some shelves. I learned that it had been the work room of the company artist. She had left with the onset of an illness and had decided not to return, since she was approaching retirement age. With no on site-artist, the company was sending their artwork to an agency.
The proofs for reading came in at various times throughout the day, and part of the time, I would catch up and be without anything to do. As soon as the plant manager discovered I had a degree in art, he suggested to the company CEO that I could save the company money by doing both art work and proofreading. They decided to give it a try. Soon I was designing logos and letterheads and doing paste-up as well as the work I was originally hired to do.
It didn’t take me long to learn the plant manager, Robert, was too free with his hands when he got near me. I was determined not to let another man cause me to have to leave a job. I liked what I was doing, and I wanted to stay. Robert’s wife worked in the front office in sales, and she didn’t seem concerned with his activities. I decided some people are just touchers and that I’d have to learn to deal with it. Becky, his wife, was nice looking, and didn’t appear to be threatened by her husband's fondness for touching other women.
There were some other things I learned about this job as time went on. While the plant was large, and there were still a lot of employees, many people had recently left to take other jobs. In fact, the entire department of camera and stripping had emptied out. There was only one full time employee in that department, and he’d only been there for about a month. Other than the presses, this was one of the most essential departments in a printing company.
I also found out that Robert had only recently joined the company. He had run a small printing company out of his home. When he joined this company, he brought everyone from his own company with him. This included two of his brothers, his wife, and Dave, an older Cajun man from South Louisiana. Dave was the lone employee now in the camera/stripping department. No one told me anything, but I sensed an undercurrent of secrecy that wasn't to be mentioned around new employees.
One day, Robert came into my office and told me to drop whatever I was doing because there was a big rush job to print and Dave needed help. He told me he needed me to work in the stripping department. I didn’t know anything about stripping but he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.” so I acquired yet another job.
The stripping job involved working with large negatives of type and pictures that had to be taped into proper position onto yellow masking sheets. He started me out with an easy job. When the negatives were laid on a light table they were covered with tiny pinpoints of light that was caused by dust particles. All of these spots had to be covered so they wouldn’t show on the final print. He gave me a small watercolor brush and some brown liquid and told me to paint all the spots out and be careful to avoid the type. This was something I had no problem doing, but the job was time consuming. My other two jobs still had to be done as well. It was a matter of who needed what done first.
From that day on, the proofs and art jobs were brought to the stripping department and I was told how much time I would have to get them done. It wouldn’t be long before I would be expected to do many more tasks. Fortunately, I was fascinated with the printing process and was eager to learn all I could.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents;
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