So, since not a lot has been going on in my current life (other than wake up at 11am, breastfeed, wash the baby, change baby's diaper, play with baby, breastfeed baby, put baby down for a nap, MAYBE get some housework done, take care of baby for the rest of the day, put baby to bed for the night, go online for a couple hours, go to bed, get up 3-4 times per night to nurse or check on baby, rinse and repeat), I'm forced to write about my past to keep you entertained. Well, at least my 20s were mildly fascinating to have provided fodder for these considerably more sanguine years of my 30s.
Anyway, in the summer of 1997, right after my sophomore year of college, I decided to stay in Manhattan to work rather than head back home to Virginia. Even though I stayed in the dorms, they were expensive enough that I took all sorts of odd jobs to afford my rent and meal plan. Today's post is just a memory of the many things I was once willing to do to stay in the city
I was already working as a baby-sitter for a nanny agency, so I kept my evenings free to continue working for my uptown clients. In addition, I also answered ads to be a "door opener" for a young couple's party. Their front door was downstairs from their condo and they couldn't hear guests ringing the bell over the music, so they hired me (twice!) to sit by the door and answer it as guests arrived. I got paid $50and a glass of wine (I was only 19 at the time so that was pretty cool for me) for my efforts.
I also got a temporary job working at the design department of the clothing company Van Heusen. A friend of mine at the time was a freelance clothing designer and she had been working with Van Heusen off and on, and heard they needed some temporary help during that summer. I think I got paid $30/hour, so I was more than willing to work on the Upper East Side, get a rare view into the world of fashion design, and pay my bills at that. It turned out to be pretty boring work. I was hired to cut out copies of designs and affix them to sheets of paper to be filed away later. The women who actually worked at the company were uber-snooty and NEVER brown-bagged their lunch, so I was always a little snubbed for being the poor college student temp who brought her lunch to work. Whatever. I got loads of money, and that's all I really cared about.
My longer-lasting job that summer was working for a temp agency. I remember going in and having to show my typing proficiency, which I later learned, did not include any backspacing I might do to correct errors. After ascertaining that I was no typist, they ended up assigning me to St Martins Press, which I didn't realize until my first day of work is located in the historic Flatiron Building at 23rd St where Broadway and Fifth Avenue intersect. I was in awe. In fact, I got to work early enough that first morning that I sat in the park just east of the building for a few minutes, admiring its beauty, watching traffic and the world go by.
I ended up working for a woman (Caroline? Ann? Helen?) in her 40s who was brusk but friendly. She introduced me to the girl I was filling in for, who had decided to go of to graduate school. I soon found out why. The work, which mostly involved finding plot summaries for books that were published there, making copies of those and then putting them into alphabetized files, was mind-numbingly boring. In fact, I literally fell asleep over my work on a number occasions. I actually fell asleep standing up over the copy machine it was so boring. But I did find one interesting part of the job--reading the plot summaries for the books. St Martins Press publishes a wide variety of books, from fiction to autobiographical to self-help, and I passed the slow periods by reading the plot descriptions of some of the books with more interesting titles. Over and over again, I'd come across the titles "Surfing the Himalayas" and "Snowboarding to Nirvana" which I could only imagine was about an extreme-sports enthusiast with a wild imagination. I was pretty absorbed with the murder-mystery book titles and some of the other fiction. On one of my last days working at St Martins Press, my boss told me that I could select some books that were almost-finalized hardback copies that needed a bit more editing. I was psyched to be able to take some books home, so I took one really long novel called "Tully" and another, by the same author, called "Red Leaves." Both were pretty good. Despite my boredom by the job and my little habit of falling asleep over my work, I apparently did a bangup job because my boss offered to hire me on permanently. I had to refuse since I was returning to college in a few weeks, but I was kind of flattered that she liked me, and was willing to serve as a reference for me for future job prospects. I've never forgotten that job and that big old odd-shaped building. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the Flatiron building has a really old rickety elevator that I was sure was going to break and caue me to fall to my death.
So, that's that. Everytime I'm back in Manhattan and walk past the Flatiron Building I can't help but want to walk in (use the OTHER elevator that's a little more stable) and see what's become of St Martins Press. But instead, I remain content just looking up at the building, in all its wonder. It is satisfying enough on its own.
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