Finding Work Takes Work

In the immortal words of RuPaul, you better work. To that end, while still in college, I had a handful of interviews for a summer job.

My first one was with a small architectural firm. I thought it could be interesting because it was in a beautifully restored old train station. I guess I thought, if you’re a design firm and your own space is bad or bland, it’s a strike against you. Conversely, if you have a really nice office, I award bonus points. My appointment was scheduled fairly late in the day, but I figured they needed to get in a mostly full day of work in before doing administrative type tasks. And it wasn’t crazy late, maybe around 5:00pm, so imagine my surprise when I got there and everyone was gone except the owner of the firm. Red flag alert.

First of all, how weird to not get an opportunity to meet all those potential coworkers, but worse, I was creepily alone with a strange man. I mean that in both senses; he was a stranger to me, and he was strange. He implied he wasn’t even really hiring but that he was doing me a favor reviewing my portfolio with me. Then he said how nice it was that we could talk “father-daughter like.” It was beyond uncomfortable, and I couldn’t nope on out of there fast enough.

NEXT!

This firm also had a gorgeous office and the people (yes, this one had employees there!) seemed friendly and welcoming. Someone explained how the space used to be a bank. It had lots of natural daylight, a pressed tin ceiling, and high end, well detailed finishes. Very classy. As I was given a tour around, the duties I would have as a summer interned were explained. One of my tasks would be running the blueprints, which back in the day involved some pretty nasty chemicals. Ammonia and who knows what all else. I do know no papercut hurt more than a papercut from a fresh blueprint. On my tour it was casually mentioned that they were considering putting some ventilation into the blueprint machine room because it was housed in the old bank vault which had no ventilation, and the last person who made blueprints there had to leave because he was bleeding from the lungs.

NEXT!

I had heard good things about another local firm but learned through my dad that one of the owners of the firm had recently taken an unexpected leave of absence and it had had a negative impact on their operations. I didn’t interview there but enjoyed the story. This architect’s adult children had, over the course of a few months, all fallen on hard financial times and moved back in with him and his wife. After living like that for a while, the parents held a family meeting, said the kids were welcome to live there as long as they liked, but would need to start paying the bills themselves because the parents had joined the Peace Corps and were leaving the country. That’s one way to get yourself out of a situation.

I wound up getting a job at a small architectural firm in downtown Binghamton. Oddly, how I landed that, I have no memory of. That probably means it was a totally normal process. Why waste brain cells remembering that? I lived with my parents that summer and rented a clunker of a car so I could get around. It didn’t have any amenities like a cassette player (yes, that’s what a nice care would have had then, don’t you dare judge me) so I put a little battery powered tape recorder in the center console. How could I drive without my mix tapes? To this day, I still consider my car to be a stereo on wheels.

The afternoon before my job started, my mom sweetly drove me to the office and back so I would know exactly where to go. GPS circa 1989 – Great Parental Support.

Great! I did it! Lifetime goal achieved. I was working as an architectural intern! I was so excited my first day when they asked me if I was interested in historic preservation. Well sure! They led me to a table stacked with rolls and rolls of old, crumbling, torn blueprints. Before my imagination could run too wild with the possibilities of the amazing building that must be associated with those drawings that I’d get to work on, they handed me a roll of scotch tape and instructed me to patch the documents back together as best as I could. Oh. So I have funny coworkers.

For the most part my coworkers were great. In particular there was an architect there who’d had his own business for years, but he’d closed up shop and retired. When he realized he wasn’t quite ready for retirement yet after all, he got a job at this firm. His deal was he’d accept a below average salary but would only work on what he thought were “the fun parts.” It was a win-win and I learned so much from him. I was slightly concerned when I discovered everyone referred to the office manager as The Prince of Darkness, but what can you do?

Despite my judgy efforts, the office here was not a very nice space. It was dark and cramped and you had to enter from a back alley. One day I was asked to grab something from the storage room which I had never been in before. I went through the door and, the word stunned doesn’t do justice to what I was feeling, I walked into an amazing room. Floor to ceiling windows with beautiful city views and amazing light, a high decorative tin ceiling, and so much space. The items I had been sent in to retrieve were laying on the floor since there wasn’t so much as a single a table or shelf in there. Naturally, I had questions. It turned out it was a space that was sometimes rented out to other businesses as an additional income source. But it was empty then. It took everything I had not to shout out “Everyone! Grab your desks and follow me. You won’t believe what’s through the door in the kitchen!”

The firm had a school renovation project under construction, and through no fault of their own, there was an accidental asbestos contamination. We learned about it from the owner. I’ll never forget hearing the receptionist over the loud speaker “Ed, Superintendent X is on line 3 for you. And she’s super pissed.” Because part of the district offices had to be sealed off for remediation, that poor woman had to get training for abatement certification so she personally could don the protective gear and go in to retrieve the student files since legally the hired workers couldn’t look at those confidential materials. She deserved to be PO’d.

Because I’m old, drawings back then were pen or pencil on paper, easily damaged. We had just hit a big deadline and the drawings were laid out to sign and send to the printer. Because of the cramped space they were right by the kitchen. Someone coming out with a fresh cup of coffee tripped and his mug went flying towards the drawings, but it was stopped - heroically, tragically and accidentally – by me. I just so happened to be standing by the drawings and took the brunt of it. Did you know freshly brewed coffee is very, very hot? And it stains. Not one person expressed concern for me. They all rushed to check that the drawings were OK and to get the handful of drops that had landed on the vellums cleaned up. It was dumb luck that I had a suitcase of clothes in my car trunk that day because the whole family was headed to the lake house. I changed in the bathroom and tried to rinse out my original clothes in the sink as best as I could. And then someone complained that my clothes hanging on the back of the door to dry had startled her. I was stunned into silence. Or maybe I just couldn’t come up with a response that was appropriate to say.

At least I then had a huge advantage commuting in from the lake house. Sometimes you run out of work for a summer intern. I was paid by the hour so I would tell them, if you can’t think of something for me to do for the rest of the afternoon, do not worry. I can be sailing or swimming in 30 minutes. A could watch relief, then resentment, pass across their faces.

Sometimes living with your parents again after a few years of college can be a challenge, but we didn’t have any issues. There was one tiny blip of defiance one afternoon when I was driving home after work with raging case of PMS. I stopped and got a big bag of potato chips and some French Onion dip. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and hitting that salty goodness pretty hard and my sister joined me. My mom said “Girls, stop that. You’ll ruin your dinner.” I replied, “Oh. No. This is happening.” My sister looked at me, looked at Mom, looked at me eating another chip, and then said to me as she grabbed a chip, “I’ve never loved you more.”

I hadn’t been that familiar with downtown Binghamton so it was fun to walk around and explore during my lunch hours. One day, I realized my meanderings had me in a section that didn’t feel that safe. I turned a corner and almost walked into someone. He was a big guy. And then we did that thing where you each move to get out of the other person’s way, but you both move in the same direction so you’re in the way again. More than once. And you can’t tell if the other person is doing it on purpose or not. I thought I was about to have a real problem on my hands when he looked down at me and said, “Well beep beep, babe.” We laughed about that all summer.

They offered me a full-time job after graduation if I wanted to come back, but that didn’t seem like the right fit for me. Maybe because of the Prince of Darkness, maybe because of coffee scalding, but mostly because I wanted to move away from my hometown a bit.

My last semester of college was crazy busy as I worked on my year-long thesis design project, preparing it for presentation. I hadn’t had time to think about securing a job, or even where I wanted to live really. Details. My mom called me one day to tell me she’d heard an ad on the radio from an architectural firm in Ithaca. They were promoting their services but also said they were hiring. Mom passed along their address. I had literally just written a resume and cover letter for my Professional Practices class so talk about minimal effort - fold your homework, put it in an envelope and slap a stamp on it. I couldn’t argue I didn’t have time for that. To my surprise, that got me an interview.

I didn’t have a car at college, so I had to rent one to drive up. It was March, but the weather got worse and worse as I went. The temperature plummeted, fog rolled in, and it started to snow. I remember my interviewer showing me around and saying, “Normally we have a great view of Cayuga Lake, it’s a shame you can’t see it all today with this fog.” The office was an interesting layout. It had multiple different levels, with each being a design studio focusing on a specific project, or a particular department. Every level was separated by a few steps and they spiraled up around a central atrium with a tree in it. Many years later, when the office building was for sale and on the market for quite a long time, the realtor lamented having to constantly come over and water the tree.

I really liked everything and everyone I saw during my interview. Well, that’s a lie. There was a hooked rug on the wall behind the receptionist that was aggressively unattractive. I briefly thought about turning right back around and leaving is the level of badness we’re talking about here. But other than that, really a great place. They also designed schools, which seemed like a noble career path to me.

I started my drive back to college as soon as my interview ended. The roads and visibility were quite bad, and I was flustered and got into a car accident before I even made it out of town. Thank heavens no one was hurt, but it did break out the back seat driver’s side window, which didn’t bode well for the rest of the 3 ½ hour drive in a white out. The gentleman driving the other car involved in the accident was justifiably upset with me, but when we got to talking and it came out I was a Penn Stater, his demeanor completely changed. I guess our basketball team was doing really well in the playoffs and he was a huge fan. Now we were buddies. I did my best to convey complete enthusiasm without letting it slip I’d never been to a basketball game in my life.

The cops came and didn’t ticket me, declaring that my rental car didn’t have appropriate snow tires. They offered to have that car towed and to drive me up to the airport where the local rental car agency was located to get a different vehicle. Can you get over my audacity? “Hi. I just wrecked one of your cars. Can I have another?” To my distress, the answer was no. Not because I was a car killer, but because I wasn’t old enough. In Pennsylvania, where I started from, you only had to be 21 to rent a car, which I was, but in New York you had to be 25. I couldn’t fly back either because as we talked, flight after flight was being cancelled. I guess I looked pathetic, and/or unwilling to wait 4 years to age in, so after several calls to people higher and higher up the corporate ladder, someone okayed my renting a new car.

The roads were getting worse and worse, so instead of driving all the way back to college, I went to my parents’ house to spend the night. Hooray for parents that always have a safe and welcoming place for you with no advance warning whatsoever. I also remember calling my college roommate to let her know not to worry when I didn’t return that evening. “Remember this morning when you told me to have a safe trip? Guess what I didn’t do…”

The next morning was bright and sunny, but I remember driving along the highway and seeing the evidence of numerous accidents from the day before. There were headlights, bumpers, and other bits of cars all over the side of the road. In fact, that spring storm is what caused Gloria Estefan’s bus to crash, so all around I felt like I was at least in good company.

Is it any wonder that when I got the job offer from them a few days later, I took it and spent my entire career there? If that’s what interviewing is like, I didn’t have another one in me.

A number of years ago, several of us had a meeting with the marketing department and a debate arose about whether or not radio advertising was a good use of resources. I reminded them it was the best money they ever spent.