Welcome to the Working World

I fell into my first job, at the tender-ish age of 15, in the summer of 1974. The gig? Candy girl at the Manos theater. It was a big old vaudeville house, complete with orchestra pit.

There hadn’t been a live performance in decades though. A shame as it would’ve been perfect for musicals, plays and opera. Indiana, Pennsylvania, back then, was hardly a happening artsy kind of town. It was place populated by coal miners and college professors with very little in between. The most glorious, highbrow thing to pass through the theater was showings of Chinatown, Murder on the Orient Express and OF COURSE Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. (Young Frankenstein -- possibly my favorite movie of all time. Right after Blade Runner, that is.)

I was dating one of the ushers. Yep, there were ushers back then. These were the guys, always dudes, with flashlights who would lead you to your seat. Girls sold candy and tickets. Boys ushered. It was the way the world was structured.

After the last show, the ushers, my fellow candy girls and I would pile into one of the usher’s father’s cars, a pale green 1973 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham (a seriously ugly ride) and cruise. The inevitable doobie was sparked as we looked for the never present excitement of our tiny town. Given that Indiana’s main drag was just a few blocks long and there was pretty much nothing beyond that, we cruised the hills, the farmland surrounding the bright ‘city lights.’ Yeah, this was hardly American Graffiti.

The following year, I tried to get a gig at the local posh clothing store -- Brody’s. All dolled up, I walked into their Personnel Department (this was before Human Resources was invented). I was wearing a pair of totally hip, burnt orange, tweedy gaucho pants (a much prized gift from Aunt Mary Ann in NYC) with a bell sleeved, deep orange sweater. There were adorable, delicate pastel flowers embroidered around the boat neckline. On my feet -- maroon leather clogs. It was 1975 and I was THE pinnacle of chic, mod fashion.

And I didn’t even get an interview.

I was bumming huge! How could they possibly have passed me over -- I’d be such an asset. OK, I really and truly wanted that employee discount. This is possibly where my budding career as a Carrie Bradshaw-esque fashion plate/disaster derailed. Em...good?

In any case, I asked my mother -- ‘what up,’ ‘why,’ ‘warum?’ (one of the rare times that we discussed versus fought during my teen years) Her brief, to the point enlightenment was this -- ‘look at the people they employ. Do they look like you? Do you look like them? Companies hire the same sorts over and over.’

Huh. I didn’t doubt her for a moment but still I was angry. I didn’t look anything like the women at Brody’s -- me with my very dark brown hair in a sea of blonds, olive-ish skin tone amongst the luminescently pale and, oopsie, a figure that didn’t get the memo that we were all to look like 12 year old boys with mini tits (it being the ‘70s and all).

This was radically unfair! Yeah, duh. Welcome to the working world, little girl.