Working. Part 20

He has been a mail carrier since 1964, though he's worked in the post office for twenty-six years. "Back in '47 I was a clerk at the finance window. I had a break in the service and came back as a truckdriver. I was a little confined. Bein' a carrier gives me more street time where I'm meeting more of the public." He is forty-eight years old.

I'm doing a job that's my life ambition. When I was in school, you said in the yearbook what you're most likely to be. I did say mailman. First thing came to my mind. As a kid, when I was coming up, I didn't have any idea this would wind up as my chosen profession. It has.

This is a profession that everyone has looked up to and respected. They always say, "Here comes the mailman"-pony express or something. This always brought a gleam to everybody's eye. Everyone likes to receive mail. I feel it is one of the most respected professions that is throughout the nation. You're doing a job for the public and a job for the country.

It's getting to a point where it's payin' now. Used to be they didn't pay'em much. Everyone thought the mailman was making much more than he makes, "Aw, you got a good job, you're makin' lots of money." What it takes to live, you're barely sc.r.a.ping it, just barely getting along.

You find that most people in the post office have two jobs. Some of 'em have three jobs. I have had two most of the time. Now I only have one. My wife, she's working. If she wasn't, I don't know how we'd make it.

Now the top is eleven thousand dollars. This is just the last couple of years, they'd progressed to that status. For quite a while, the top was only in the seven thousand bracket. A mailman, breaking in, he makes somewhere along $3.60 an hour. This is subs. They progress somewhere about seven cents a year.

Everybody in the post office are moonlighting. We have a lot of men in the post office and their wives also in the post office. There are more women carriers today. And they're doing a bang-up job. It's a fabulous job for a woman. At the eleven-thousand-dollar bracket after eight years, it's a nice piece of change for a woman.

My day starts at four o'clock. I hit the floor. At five thirty I'm at work. We pull mail from the cases that the night clerks have thrown. I start casin', throwin' letters. At my station we have fifty-three carriers. Each one has a pigeonhole that his mail goes in. You are constantly pulling mail out of these pigeonholes.

I have one big office building downtown and a smaller one. Each firm is a case. As you work on a case, you get to know the people who get personal mail. You throw it to that firm. I have sixty different outfits in the building that I service. Downtown is much easier than the residential district. You could have about 540 separations in the residential. I know about ninety percent of the people in the office building. We are on a first name basis.

I make two trips a day. The mail is relayed by truck. I get over to the building, I unsack it and line it up according to various offices. Then I start my distribution, floor by floor. We have twenty-three floors in this building. I take the elevator up to the fifteenth, and as I go up, I drop the mail off on each floor. Then I walk down and make the distributions. Later, I get the upper floors.

The various people I meet in the building, we're constantly chatting, world affairs and everything. You don't have a chance to go off daydreaming. My day ends about two '. During the day I might feel sluggish, but at quitting time you always feel happy.

I worked residential six months and flew back downtown. (Laughs.) Quite a bit more walking there. I had one district that covered thirty-two blocks. In a residential district you have relay boxes. It's a large brown box, which you probably see settin' on a corner next to the red, white, and blue box. You have a key that will open this. You have maybe three relay boxes in your district. You can run about twenty-five miles a day. If I had a pedometer, I'd be clocked around ten on this job.

Walking is good for you. It keeps you active. You more or less feel better. The bag's on my shoulder with me at all times. It varies from two pounds to thirty-five-which is the limit you're supposed to carry. The shoulder's not affected. Just keep goin', that's all.

Constantly you walk. You go home and put your feet in a hot basin after. That feels good. About twice a week, you give 'em a good soakin'. When I'm home, I keep 'em elevated, stay off 'em as much as possible, give 'em a lot of rest. I wear out on the average about three or five pairs of shoes a year. When I first started the bag, seemed like I was carryin' a ton. But as you go along, the bag isn't getting any lighter but you're getting accustomed to it.

When I come home, I walk in the door, turn the one-eyed monster TV on, take my uniform off, sit on the couch to watch a story, and usually go to sleep. (Laughs.) Around six, seven o'clock, my wife comes home. "You tired?" "Somewhat." So I watch TV again with her and eat dinner. Nine thirty, ten o'clock, I'm ready for bed.

If you've got a second job, you get off at two, hustle and bustle off to that second job. You get off from there eight, nine o'clock and you rush home, you rush to bed. Sleep fast and get up and start all over again. I've had a second job up until last year. I tried to get away from walkin' on that one. To find something wherein I was stationary in one spot. But most of my part-time jobs have always been deliveries. I was on the move at all times. If I hadn't been on the move, I would probably be asleep on the job. Moving about on my feet kept me awake.

Most things a carrier would contend with is dogs. You think he won't bite, but as soon as you open the door the dog charges out past the patron and he clips you. This is a very hectic experience for the mailman. On a lot of residential streets, you have dog packs roaming, and a lot of times you don't know whether the dog is friendly or not. You try to make friends with him in order that you won't be attacked. In some cases, he'll walk your district with you. He'd walk this block with you. When you reach the corner, he'd turn back and go home. (Laughs.) You got a vicious dog, he chases after you.

(Sighs.) There's more dogs nowadays. Yes, they have dogs that's always out. Oh, I've been attacked. (Laughs.) I've had several instances where dogs have made me jump fences. One was over in a vacant lot. I was about a hundred yards from him. I was doing steps and coming down. I'm watching him, and he's evidently watching me. As I pa.s.s this lot, here he comes! It's a middle-cla.s.s white area. The woman, she was walking down the street. She musta knew the dog. She called him by name and shooed at him. Shot mace at him. (Laughs.) She come up and said, "I'm sorry he's bothering you." She spoke to him and told him to go and he went off.

Most people have the mailman pretty well timed as to what time he'll be around. You have old lady pensioners. You have ADC. They're constantly waiting for checks. They're always waiting. If they miss you on this block, they will run around to the next block. "Mailman, you got my check?" (Laughs.) You know it's not there 'cause you know what you have. "Look in the bag again. It might be mixed up with somebody else's mail." You look anyway to make 'em feel good. You know who are getting checks. Therefore you have to be ready for 'em. Interesting life.

I'll work until retirement. I have the years of service but I don't have the age. Last year they made a special package. We could get out at twenty-five years of service and fifty-five years of age. I need seven more years. Retirement pays anywhere from $250 to $300 a month. Not much. That's why quite a few of 'em didn't go.

With thirty years of service, you can go up to seventy years of age. If the retirement's right, I'll not be here. At retirement, I'll be looking for another job where it wouldn't be life and b.u.t.ter. This other job would be just a supplement. I'm thinkin' about goin' in business for myself. So when I reach my reclining years I wouldn't have to work so hard.

Ever talk about your day's work with your wife?

No. She has enough problems of her own.

CONRAD SWIBEL.

He is a gas meter reader. He has been at it for about a year. He is twenty-four, married. "I have a kid comin' July twenty-eighth. The first one. It'll be pretty exciting."

Reading gas meters, it's kind of a strenuous business. You have to do a lot of running around. Today I had a real bad book. It was crummy, 'cause I did Wilmette,44 kinda the older homes. The houses are on an acre, half-acre plots, and you do a lot of walking. They call it juice if you got a good day. You got a juice book, a real good book. Today I didn't have a juice book. If I have all outside meters, I can read a hundred meters, which is a hundred homes, in an hour. I was doing maybe thirty-five in an hour today.

With the big homes, half of them will be in Florida. They have beautiful homes. I'd like to own a home like that, yeah. You usually go to the back door. I'll ring the doorbell, then I'll knock. I knock too loud, she'll get on me. If I just ring the doorbell and don't knock, they'll say, "Why didn't you knock?" You get it all the time. If I knock, I get it. If I don't knock, I'll get it. Maybe eight out of ten homes, their doorbells don't work. Sometimes they're good enough to put a little sign up: Doorbell doesn't work, please knock.

You have the blue s.h.i.+rt with the gas company on a patch. During the wintertime they give you a badge, with your ID picture and all that. That helps you get in. They try to keep us on the same route so people will get used to you. People are suspicious.

They have some colored people who work for the gas company. They'll have the police called in on 'em almost every day they're out there. They'll have an older woman and she'll say, "Oh my G.o.d, a colored person!" She'll think he's breaking into the house. They have these big Afros. I have a nice face, so they don't bug me. The colored gas meter readers get fol-lowed all the time when they go down in the bas.e.m.e.nt-which slows you up. They ask, "You read it that quick? Come back here and read it again." Wow, I read it, leave me alone.

In Evanston I do the colored section and the white section. Maybe five out of ten colored homes would have dogs, where eight out of nine or ten white homes would have dogs. The worst ones are the schnauzers and the poodles. They'll bite you in the knee or in the leg. Almost every time you'll go into a house, they jump on ya and sniff ya and if you do three hundred homes a day, it gets aggravating.

I've been bit once already by a German shepherd. And that was something. It was really scary. It was an outside meter the woman had. I read the gas meter and was walking back out and heard a woman yell. I turned around and this German shepherd was comin' at me. The first thing I thought of was that he might go for my throat, like the movies. So I sort of crouched down and gave him my arm instead of my neck. He grabbed a hold of my arm, bit that, turned around. My arm was kinda soft, so I thought I'd give him something harder. So I gave him my hand. A little more bone in that. So he bit my hand.

I gave it to him so he wouldn't bite my throat. I didn't want him to grab hold of my face. He turned around again and by that time-they usually give you a three-cell flashlight, a pretty big one-I had that out and caught him right in the mouth. And he took the flashlight away from me. I jammed it in his mouth and he just ripped it away. I jumped a six-foot fence tryin' to get away from him, 'cause then I had my senses back. It was maybe in five seconds this all happened.

Were you badly hurt?

No. Just a hole right here in my arm. (Indicates a livid scar.) I was cussin' pretty good, too. She was tryin' to call the dog back, which made me turn around. Otherwise he'd probably got me in the back. I'm just glad I turned around.

You can usually tell if a dog's gonna bite ya. You're just waitin' for him to do somethin' and then you can clobber him. The gas company'll stay behind you in that kind of thing. That's the biggest part of a dog's day, when the gas man comes. (Laughs.) I've gone into houses where the woman will say, "Let me grab the dog. I don't want you to give him a hard time." I've had one house where I was trying to make friends with the dog. He was a schnauzer. I started to walk away because it was just barking its little fool head off. It just fell over on its side. I thought it had a heart attack. She said, "He usually relapses from barking too much." She gave me a glare like it was my fault.

Usually they'll say, "Don't hit the dog." If it's bad enough, I usually hit him in the head with the flashlight, to knock it away. Then they'll say, "Why did you hit it? The dog's not gonna bite you." I say, "It's jumping on me, it's scratching me." And she says, "All it's doing is scratching you?" It's weird. It's not biting me, it's scratching me. (Laughs.) So that's okay.

When n.o.body's looking . . . ?

You kick him down the stairs usually. (Laughs.) Usually the dog will follow you down the stairs or back up. That'll give you a good chance,'cause the dog'll try to pa.s.s you. So you would kick him down the stairs. (Laughs.) Even if he just follows you down the stairs you try to get him for the one you missed a couple of houses back. Many people will report you if you abuse a dog. But what about me?

People complain to the company for jumping over their fence or going across their gra.s.s. I usually don't jump fences any more unless I'm in a hurry. The boss is usually nice about it. It'll get to him and he'll say, "Okay, it won't happen again." They mark down a code nine in the book: Do not cross the lawn or do not jump the fence. Older people that take care of their lawns don't like n.o.body to cross their lawns-which is kind of weird.

I got a good letter one time, not that I've gotten bad ones. I really deserve maybe six to ten letters. Maybe a woman was crippled in the house and I'll waste five, ten minutes of my time, and I'll say, "I'll give you a cup of coffee." And they'll say, "Thanks a lot," and I'm on my way. What would it hurt to write in and say this guy really helped me out?

They don't want to be bothered to come to the door. They'd rather have something else to do than answer the doorbell and let the gas man in. Why can't they say, "I don't want to admit you in my home at the present time cause it's dirty?" I can tell you something. Most of the houses are dirty, they're filthy. They stink. I have one woman, she's got fifteen cats and she's got 'em down in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll walk down there and walk right out without reading the gas meter. Yeah, white middle cla.s.s. Even in Wilmette, high cla.s.s. The outside of the house is kept nice, beautiful, but when you get inside, when you get into the heart of it, it's filthy.

One guy was reading gas meters for eight years. He went to buy furniture. The next day he was supposed to read the gas meter at the store. He wanted me to go in because he didn't want the salesman to see him, to know that he was a gas meter reader. He was embarra.s.sed. It doesn't really matter what kind of job you do, as long as you're working.

The meter readers is the bread of the whole company. Without these people being billed and having the money come into the gas company, the other employees wouldn't get paid. You have to know how to read a meter,'cause if you make a mistake, it could be maybe the guy would pay another hundred dollars more. It's kinda tricky. There's four dials. The company gives you a high and a low. Let's say 3000 for the low and 5000 for the high. It's usually about 4000, right dead in the middle. You have to go there and make sure they're using the middle. I can read a meter from twenty, thirty feet away.

There's a guy been reading meters for eight or nine years now and he's getting old. I can't see doing it for eight years. I'd probably age incredibly. Because I'm bad with putting on weight anyway, and with this running I do. My wife bought me one of these walk-a-mile meters that you can put on your belt, little j.a.panese thing. I found out I walk about eight, ten miles a day. So I don't have to worry about getting a heart attack for quite a long time. (Laughs.) I usually start reading meters at nine o'clock and with an eight-hour day I'm usually done by noon. I'm pretty quick. You learn to pace yourself. Usually if they keep you on a book long enough, you can tell if the people are home and which is a good home to miss, 'cause if the people give you a bad time, you say, "We'll catch you in a couple of months." If they took maybe a little too much time to peek through the window, I'm off. I'm rushed and they're rushed.

My boss and the boss before him were meter readers and they would have the same book as I had. What was usually an eight-hour day took them four hours, so they're not gonna rat on me. Five years ago, they were doing the same thing. It's more or less going through the ranks. Like you're a private, then private first cla.s.s. You have to go up that way.

When I get home I'm usually calling out numbers to myself. Usually four numbers. Like the last house I read: 2652. I'll be home and I'll be going 2652, 2652, 2652. It'll just be going through my mind: 2652. Like a song you hear too much.

"When I was a little kid I wanted to be a baseball pitcher. I went through Little League, Pony League, and went to college for a year and a half, when I got drafted. Baseball would have been nice. Good yearly sum." (Laughs.) The gas company's really been good with the pay. Out of every two weeks I'll make about $250 clear after taxes-which isn't bad. For being there a year, that's real good-and working half a day. Every couple of months they'll put in a nickel or a dime more. You don't even have to ask 'em.

We're starting to get young guys in now. The older you get, the more chance you have of being promoted. Over twenty-six we'll say as being old. We have from eighteen, nineteen, twenty. They start flouris.h.i.+ng at twenty, twenty-one. What they're trying to do is get married people. They don't want to hire eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds. Because they have a thing called curbing, where a guy could sit in his car and mark the numbers down themselves. Take an estimate reading. The computer would catch him, but it would maybe take three, four months. By that time, the guy would have six, eight hundred bucks and he'll go work in a gas station or whatever. They just want somebody with responsibilities.

There's big rumors going around that they'll be able to call your phone number and it'll divert to the gas meter, and the reading will come through on the telephone. I hope by that time I'll be in a different field. But I like it for now.

Sometimes they'll ask you if you want something to drink or a c.o.ke. Then I'll sit around and talk to the people, 'cause if they're nice enough to offer me a cookie or a c.o.ke, I'll say, "Sure" (laughs), and shoot the breeze for five or ten minutes. I wish it would happen more often. Then I'd probably get done at the normal time. I would probably take my time a bit more. Usually I have to go outside and get the hose going and sneak a drink of water that way. If they caught me, they'd wonder what I was doing. Most people are just preoccupied or overwhelmed with what they have to do, rather than bother with me. Maybe they have their laundry to do.

The big subject of conversation with us is dogs and women. "You shoulda seen this one in a bathing suit, real cute." If you have a nice cute chicken, that kinda brightens up your whole day. If they're younger women and they're nice looking, we have a code we put on the card. We put a Q-that stands for cutie. Then the guy'll stop and read the house for sure. But they've never gotten down to the nitty-gritty.

There's been times when the little boy would let you in and say, "Go down in the bas.e.m.e.nt." I don't do this no more. When I first started, I didn't know any better. So I went down and the woman was doing her laundry nude. It shocked me as much as it shocked her. I had one woman answer the door nude. She told me later she thought it was her girl friend. I thought I was the electric meter man instead of the gas meter man when I opened the door. (Laughs.) Completely confused. Nothing's happened physically yet. One of these days it will.

I do this one Jewish party in Skokie. The women there, I wouldn't say they're pretty wild, but they're older and when they see a young man come in the house, wants to read their gas meter, you know. (Laughs.) It's that kind of thing. It would depend on the women. I wouldn't . . .

If you see a nice lady sitting there in a two-piece bathing suit-if you work it right and they'll be laying on their stomach in the sun and they'll have their top strap undone-if you go there and you scare 'em good enough, they'll jump up. To scare 'em where they jump up and you would be able to see them better, this takes time and it gives you something to do. It adds excitement to your day. If you startle 'em they'll say, "You could've said something earlier, rather than just jumping up behind me yelling, 'Gas man'!" You have to make excitement for yourself.

Usually women follow you downstairs to make sure that maybe you're not gonna take nothin'. It definitely is a reflection. Of course, if she's wearing a nice short skirt, you follow her back up the stairs. (Laughs.) It's to occupy your day, you know? To pa.s.s the time of the day.

BRETT HAUSER.

He is seventeen. He had worked as a box boy at a supermarket in a middle-cla.s.s suburb on the outskirts of Los Angeles. "People come to the counter and you put things in their bags for them. And carry things to their cars. It was a grind."

You have to be terribly subservient to people: "Ma'am, can I take your bag?" "Can I do this?" It was at a time when the grape strikers were pa.s.sing out leaflets. They were very respectful. People'd come into the check stand, they'd say, "I just bought grapes for the first time because of those idiots outside." I had to put their grapes in the bag and thank them for coming and take them outside to the car. Being subservient made me very resentful.

It's one of a chain of supermarkets. They're huge complexes with bakeries in them and canned music over those loud-speakers-Muzak. So people would relax while they stopped. They played selections from Hair. They'd play "Guantanamera," the Cuban Revolution song. They had Soul on Ice, the Cleaver book, on sale. They had everything dressed up and very nice. People wouldn't pay any attention to the music. They'd go shopping and hit their kids and talk about those idiots pa.s.sing out anti-grape pet.i.tions.

Everything looks fresh and nice. You're not aware that in the back room it stinks and there's crates all over the place and the walls are messed up. There's graffiti and people are swearing and yelling at each other. You walk through the door, the music starts playing, and everything is pretty. You talk in hushed tones and are very respectful.

You wear a badge with your name on it. I once met someone I knew years ago. I remembered his name and said, "Mr. Castle, how are you?" We talked about this and that. As he left, he said, "It was nice talking to you, Brett." I felt great, he remembered me. Then I looked down at my name plate. Oh s.h.i.+t. He didn't remember me at all, he just read the name plate. I wish I put "Irving" down on my name plate. If he'd have said, "Oh yes, Irving, how could I forget you . . . ?" I'd have been ready for him. There's nothing personal here.

You have to be very respectful to everyone-the customers, to the manager, to the checkers. There's a sign on the cash register that says: Smile at the customer. Say h.e.l.lo to the customer. It's a.s.sumed if you're a box boy, you're really there 'cause you want to be a manager some day. So you learn all the little things you have absolutely no interest in learning.

The big things there is to be an a.s.sistant manager and eventually manager. The male checkers had dreams of being manager, too. It was like an interns.h.i.+p. They enjoyed watching how the milk was packed. Each manager had his own domain. There was the ice cream manager, the grocery manager, the dairy case manager . . . They had a sign in the back: Be good to your job and your job will be good to you. So you take an overriding concern on how the ice cream is packed. You just die if something falls off a shelf. I saw so much c.r.a.p there I just couldn't take. There was a black boy, an Oriental box boy, and a kid who had a Texas drawl. They needed the job to subsist. I guess I had the luxury to hate it and quit.

When I first started there, the manager said, "Cut your hair. Come in a white s.h.i.+rt, black shoes, a tie. Be here on time." You get there, but he isn't there. I just didn't know what to do. The checker turns around and says, "You new? What's your name?" "Brett." "I'm Peggy." And that's all they say and they keep throwing this down to you. They'll say, "Don't put it in that, put it in there." But they wouldn't help you.

You had to keep your ap.r.o.n clean. You couldn't lean back on the railings. You couldn't talk to the checkers. You couldn't accept tips. Okay, I'm outside and I put it in the car. For a lot of people, the natural reaction is to take out a quarter and give it to me. I'd say, "I'm sorry, I can't." They'd get offended. When you give someone a tip, you're sort of suave. You take a quarter and you put it in their palm and you expect them to say, "Oh, thanks a lot." When you say, "I'm sorry, I can't," they feel a little put down. They say, "No one will know." And they put it in your pocket. You say, "I really can't." It gets to a point where you have to do physical violence to a person to avoid being tipped. It was not consistent with the store's philosophy of being cordial. Accepting tips was a cordial thing and made the customer feel good. I just couldn't understand the incongruity. One lady actually put it in my pocket, got in the car, and drove away. I would have had to throw the quarter at her or eaten it or something.

When it got slow, the checkers would talk about funny things that happened. About Us and Them. Us being the people who worked there, Them being the stupid fools who didn't know where anything was-just came through and messed everything up and shopped. We serve them but we don't like them. We know where everything is. We know what time the market closes and they don't. We know what you do with coupons and they don't. There was a camaraderie of sorts. It wasn't healthy, though. It was a put-down of the others.

There was this one checker who was absolutely vicious. He took great delight in making every little problem into a major crisis from which he had to emerge victorious. A customer would give him a coupon. He'd say, "You were supposed to give me that at the beginning." She'd say, "Oh, I'm sorry." He'd say, "Now I gotta open the cash register and go through the whole thing. Madam, I don't watch out for every customer. I can't manage your life." A put-down.

It never bothered me when I would put something in the bag wrong. In the general scheme of things, in the large questions of the universe, putting a can of dog food in the bag wrong is not of great consequence. For them it was.

There were a few checkers who were nice. There was one that was incredibly sad. She could be unpleasant at times, but she talked to everybody. She was one of the few people who genuinely wanted to talk to people. She was saying how she wanted to go to school and take courses so she could get teaching credit. Someone asked her, "Why don't you?" She said, "I have to work here. My hours are wrong. I'd have to get my hours changed." They said, "Why don't you?" She's worked there for years. She had seniority. She said, "Jim won't let me." Jim was the manager. He didn't give a d.a.m.n. She wanted to go to school, to teach, but she can't because every day she's got to go back to the supermarket and load groceries. Yet she wasn't bitter. If she died a checker and never enriched her life, that was okay, because those were her hours.

She was extreme in her unpleasantness and her consideration. Once I dropped some grape juice and she was squawking like a bird. I came back and mopped it up. She kept saying to me, "Don't worry about it. It happens to all of us." She'd say to the customers, "If I had a dime for all the grape juice I dropped . . ."

Jim's the boss. A fish-type handshake. He was balding and in his forties. A lot of managers are these young, clean-shaven, neatly cropped people in their twenties. So Jim would say things like "groovy." You were supposed to get a ten-minute break every two hours. I lived for that break. You'd go outside, take your shoes off, and be human again. You had to request it. And when you took it, they'd make you feel guilty.

You'd go up and say, "Jim, can I have a break?" He'd say, "A break? You want a break? Make it a quick one, nine and a half minutes." Ha ha ha. One time I asked the a.s.sistant manager, Henry. He was even older than Jim. "Do you think I can have a break?" He'd say, "You got a break when you were hired." Ha ha ha. Even when they joked it was a put-down.

The guys who load the shelves are a step above the box boys. It's like uppercla.s.smen at an officer candidate's school. They would make sure that you conformed to all the prescribed rules, because they were once box boys. They know what you're going through, your anxieties. But instead of making it easier for you, they'd make it harder. It's like a military inst.i.tution.

I kept getting box boys who came up to me, "Has Jim talked to you about your hair? He's going to because it's getting too long. You better get it cut or grease it back or something." They took delight in it. They'd come to me before Jim had told me. Everybody was out putting everybody down . . .

BABE SECOLI.

She's a checker at a supermarket. She's been at it for almost thirty years. "I started at twelve-a little, privately owned grocery store across the street from the house. They didn't have no cash registers. I used to mark the prices down on a paper bag.

"When I got out of high school, I didn't want no secretary job. I wanted the grocery job. It was so interesting for a young girl. I just fell into it. I don't know no other work but this. It's hard work, but I like it. This is my life."

We sell everything here, millions of items. From potato chips and pop-we even have a genuine pearl in a can of oysters. It sells for two somethin'. Snails with the sh.e.l.ls that you put on the table, fanciness. There are items I never heard of we have here. I know the price of every one. Sometimes the boss asks me and I get a kick out of it. There isn't a thing you don't want that isn't in this store.

You sort of memorize the prices. It just comes to you. I know half a gallon of milk is sixty-four cents; a gallon, $1.10. You look at the labels. A small can of peas, Raggedy Ann. Green Giant, that's a few pennies more. I know Green Giant's eighteen and I know Raggedy Ann is fourteen. I know Del Monte is twenty-two. But lately the prices jack up from one day to another. Margarine two days ago was forty-three cents. Today it's forty-nine. Now when I see Imperial comin' through, I know it's forty-nine cents. You just memorize. On the register is a list of some prices, that's for the part-time girls. I never look at it.

I don't have to look at the keys on my register. I'm like the secretary that knows her typewriter. The touch. My hand fits. The number nine is my big middle finger. The thumb is number one, two and three and up. The side of my hand uses the bar for the total and all that.

I use my three fingers-my thumb, my index finger, and my middle finger. The right hand. And my left hand is on the groceries. They put down their groceries. I got my hips pus.h.i.+n' on the b.u.t.ton and it rolls around on the counter. When I feel I have enough groceries in front of me, I let go of my hip. I'm just movin'-the hips, the hand, and the register, the hips, the hand, and the register . . . (As she demonstrates, her hands and hips move in the manner of an Oriental dancer.) You just keep goin', one, two, one, two. If you've got that rhythm, you're a fast checker. Your feet are flat on the floor and you're turning your head back and forth.

Somebody talks to you. If you take your hand off the item, you're gonna forget what you were ringin'. It's the feel. When I'm pus.h.i.+n' the items through I'm always having my hand on the items. If somebody interrupts to ask me the price, I'll answer while I'm movin'. Like playin' a piano.

I'm eight hours a day on my feet. It's just a physical tire of standing up. When I get home I get my second wind. As far as standin' there, I'm not tired. It's when I'm roamin' around tryin' to catch a shoplifter. There's a lot of shoplifters in here. When I see one, I'm ready to run for them.

When my boss asks me how I know, I just know by the movements of their hands. And with their purses and their shopping bags and their clothing rearranged. You can just tell what they're doin' and I'm never wrong so far.

The best kind shoplift. They're not doin' this because they need the money. A very nice cla.s.s of people off Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive. They do it every day-men and women. Lately it's been more or less these hippies, livin' from day to day . . .

It's meats. Some of these women have big purses. I caught one here last week. She had two big packages of sirloin strips in her purse. That amounted to ten dollars. When she came up to the register, I very politely said, "Would you like to pay for anything else, without me embarra.s.sing you?" My boss is standing right there. I called him over. She looked at me sort of on the c.o.c.ky side. I said, "I know you have meat in your purse. Before your neighbors see you, you either pay for it or take it out." She got very snippy. That's where my boss stepped in. "Why'd you take the meat?" She paid for it.

n.o.body knows it. I talk very politely. My boss doesn't do anything drastic. If they get rowdy, he'll raise his voice to embarra.s.s 'em. He tells them not to come back in the store again.

I have one comin' in here, it's razor blades. He's a very nice dressed man in his early sixties. He doesn't need these razor blades any more than the man in the moon. I've been following him and he knows it. So he's layin' low on the razor blades. It's little petty things like this. They're mad at somebody, so they have to take their anger out on something.

We had one lady, she pleaded with us that she wanted to come back-not to have her husband find out. My boss told her she was gonna be watched wherever she went. But that was just to put a little fright in her. Because she was just an elderly person. I would be too embarra.s.sed to come into a store if this would happen. But I guess it's just the normal thing these days-any place you go. You have to feel sorry for people like this. I like 'em all.

My family gets the biggest kick out of the shoplifters: "What happened today?" (Laughs.) This is about the one with the meat in her purse. She didn't need that meat any more than the man in the moon.

Some of 'em, they get angry and perturbed at the prices, and they start swearin' at me. I just look at 'em. You have to consider the source. I just don't answer them, because before you know it I'll get in a heated argument. The customer's always right. Doesn't she realize I have to buy the same food? I go shopping and pay the same prices. I'm not gettin' a discount. The shoplifters, they say to me, "Don't you want for something?" Yes, I want and I'm standing on my feet all day and I got varicose veins. But I don't walk out of here with a purse full of meat. When I want a piece of steak I buy a piece of steak.

My feet, they hurt at times, very much so. When I was eighteen years old I put the bathing suit on and I could see the map on my leg. From standing, standing. And not the proper shoes. So I wear like nurse's shoes with good inner sole arch support, like Dr. Scholl's. They ease the pain and that's it. Sometimes I go to bed, I'm so tired that I can't sleep. My feet hurt as if I'm standing while I'm in bed.

I love my job. I've got very nice bosses. I got a black manager and he's just beautiful. They don't bother you as long as you do your work. And the pay is terrific. I automatically get a raise because of the union. Retail Clerks. Right now I'm ready for retirement as far as the union goes. I have enough years. I'm as high up as I can go. I make $189 gross pay. When I retire I'll make close to five hundred dollars a month. This is because of the union. Full benefits. The business agents all know me by name. The young kids don't stop and think what good the union's done.

Sometimes I feel some of these girls are overpaid. They don't do the work they're supposed to be doin'. Young girls who come in, they just go plunk, plunk, so slow. All the old customers, they say, "Let's go to Babe," because I'm fast. That's why I'm so tired while these young girls are going dancin' at night. They don't really put pride in their work. To me, this is living. At times, when I feel sick, I come to work feelin' I'll pep up here. Sometimes it doesn't. (Laughs.) I'm a checker and I'm very proud of it. There's some, they say, "A checker-ugh!" To me, it's like somebody being a teacher or a lawyer. I'm not ashamed that I wear a uniform and nurse's shoes and that I got varicose veins. I'm makin' an honest living. Whoever looks down on me, they're lower than I am.

What irritates me is when customers get very c.o.c.ky with me. "Hurry up," or "Cash my check quick." I don't think this is right. You wait your time and I'll give you my full, undivided attention. You rush and you're gonna get nothin'. Like yesterday, I had two big orders on my counter and I push the groceries down, and she says, "I have to be somewhere in ten minutes. Hurry up and bag that." You don't talk that way to me or any other checker.

I'm human, I'm working for a living. They belittle me sometimes. They use a little profanity sometimes. I stop right there and I go get the manager. n.o.body is gonna call me a (cups hand over mouth, whispers) b-i-t-c-h. These are the higher cla.s.s of people, like as if I'm their housekeeper or their maid. You don't even talk to a maid like this.

I make mistakes, I'm not infallible. I apologize. I catch it right there and then. I tell my customers, "I overcharged you two pennies on this. I will take it off of your next item." So my customers don't watch me when I ring up. They trust me. But I had one this morning-with this person I say, "How are you?" That's the extent of our conversation. She says to me, "Wait. I want to check you." I just don't bother. I make like I don't even know she's there or I don't even hear her. She's ready for an argument. So I say, "Stop right there and then. I'll give you a receipt when I'm through. If there's any mistakes I'll correct them." These people, I can't understand them-and I can't be bothered with their little trifles because I've got my next customer that wants to get out . . .

It hurts my feelings when they distrust me. I wouldn't cheat n.o.body, because it isn't going in my pocket. If I make an honest mistake, they call you a thief, they call you a ganef. I'm far from bein' a ganef.

Sometimes I feel my face gettin' so red that I'm so aggravated, I'm a total wreck. My family says, "We better not talk to her today. She's had a bad day." They say, "What happened?" I'll look at 'em and I'll start laughin', because this is not a policy to bring home your work. You leave your troubles at the store and vice versa. But there's days when you can't cope with it. But it irons out.

"When you make a mistake, you get three chances. Then they take it out of your pay, which is right. You can't make a ten-dollar mistake every week. It's fishy. What's this nonsense? If I give a customer ten dollars too much, it's your own fault. That's why they got these registers with the amounts tendered on it. You don't have to stop and count. I've never had such mistakes. It happens mostly with some of these young kids."