Guest Blog # 1

Hello all!
Since Amy and Brian are on their Evita-esque “Rainbow Tour” of the European nations until 2013, I have been asked to blog in my sister’s place.

Now I know this blog is called Corporate Gyspy, but for this first blog, I would to like to recall a very non corporate job that I experienced.

We have all had these kinds of jobs. It could have been in your high school or college days, or it could be your present reality. From waiting tables to retail, there is a whole non corporate way of earning money that I find both refreshing and frustrating.

It was my very first official job! I was 17 and fresh out of high school. Feeling confused, I decided to work for a year. College was a vague plan in the back of my mind but I had not really settled on anything. Vague confusion does not tend to lend itself to wonderful life choices.

So anyway I got a job at a dry cleaners. I applied for this job soley because it was near my house. That was pretty much it and I figured I had to start somewhere. Now it was the summer of 1998 and it was HOT.

My job was pressing and cleaning the multitude of men’s dress shirts that we received. There was no AC. There were a few fans in the back of a store front where steam cleaners belched their steam and made everyone sweat and suffer,

In short, it was HOT. HOT. I mean HOT

But, to compensate for all that, I worked with some very interesting people.
Take my manager Jody. She was about 6 months pregnant and smoked all the time. Everyone smoked all the time. Then there was the elderly, ok she was ancient, Miss Emma. She did not smoke but you always had to call her “Miss Emma.” And then you have me, and Tracey.

Tracey and I worked the pressing machines for the men’s dress shirts. There were four of these machines and we each had our individual job tasks. Tracey and I worked together all day. We were together ALL the time. She was a 38 year NYC transplant and I was a 17 year old idiot so, on the surface, we didn’t have a whole lot in common but we got along very well.

During our work time together we covered every topic from the reign of Cleopatra to rap music of the early 1990’s, and I still cherish all the “Tracey Sayings” that I received.

Tracey on Native American Culture: “Peace pipe/Crack pipe SAME difference.”

Tracey on smoking: “I am pretty sure tobacco is a vegetable.”

Tracey on her boyfriend: “He says he has ‘needs.’ I tell him that he NEEDS to work that on out.”

Tracey on our boss: “He has the nose of a drunk.”

For some reason Thursday afternoons was our slow time. That was when we had “Fashion Show!”

This entailed all the employees wearing the dry cleaned clothes and walking through the length of the store in their favorite outfits. It was our catwalk. I know this was wrong but seeing Miss Emma strut her stuff in some expensive dress, that we would then put on a hanger and hand off to a paying customer, seemed fun and daring.

My favorite part of the day though, was the late afternoon. Most of the work was done, there were little odds and ends to deal with but no pressure. All the ladies, and myself, would sit on the boxes of hangers in the back of the store, making a weird perch. They would light up their cigarettes and blow thin blue smoke in the direction of the freshly laundered clothes.

I still remember the smell and color of their cigarette smoke, diffused through the light of the front store windows, making odd colors and shapes, leading and drifting to some place, some where else.